!earshot Top 200 of 2021

Autorickshaw

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JD: It's been said that your music is a collision of cultures. Would you briefly explain what that means?

SS: Well, we're all from Toronto and we have different cultural roots, but we all came together in the music community that seems to get smaller and smaller in Toronto . We have a mix of South Indian, North Indian and Arabic influences, along with jazz, r&b and funk, hence the collision there.

JD: Good. Makes sense. Autorickshaw has a wonderful CD out called "Four Higher." It's a pun, of course. The number four and higher spelled h-i-g-h-e-r. Is there a spiritual connection to that or is it just a fun pun?

SS: Starting with Autorickshaw�it's just a fun word. It's a three wheeled motorized taxi, one of the more common modes of transportation in Asia . We thought it worked really well for our band because it is a mix of the traditional rickshaw with the motorized auto which is a kind of modern addition to it; so, it's a mix of our North and South Indian music fused with the contemporary jazz and funk.

EH: Now the album title "Four Higher"�if you look at the back of an autorickshaw, it has the words "for hire" as in to be hired, akin to a taxi cab anywhere in world. We didn't want to put "for hire" on our CD so we changed it to "Four Higher."

SS: (laughs)

EH: ... if that makes sense.

JD: Got to love it�got to love it.

JD: Your arrangements of "Caravan" (Duke Ellington composition) and "A Night in Tunisia " (Dizzy Gillespie composition) are unique and they really work. Why did you choose these two songs?

SS: For me personally it's part of my jazz standard repertoire. They are two tunes that don't necessarily swing. They can, but when you hear instruments like the tabla and other unique instruments you don't necessarily want to choose music that swings, so we chose something that's straight ahead groovy, kind of giving it a bit of a desert vibe so something like "Caravan" works really well. I came up with the arrangement for "A Night in Tunisia at 4:00 AM in a taxi in India . Maybe I'm most creative at those moments, but that tune really rendered itself to a Bollywood twist.

JD: It really does. OK, �fess up who's the Dizzy fan?

SS: (laughs) I think all of us, actually.

EH: I think everybody in the band is a Dizzy fan.

JD: I think everybody is a Dizzy fan! Well where can we get this CD?

SS: You can get it all across Canada through Festival Distribution, so it's in record stores all over Canada .

EH: It's also available on the web if you go to our website which is www.autorickshaw.ca , you order it online from Festival or online from Deep Down Productions and CD Baby, which is a popular online independent CD retailer.

JD: Do you have any new music coming out in the near future?

SS: Yes, we have a CD in the works with a hopeful release of late spring�around late May. It's going to have a lot of different twists, perhaps some Bollywood twists to jazz standards, but ever more so focusing on our Indo jazz originals and some traditional North and South Indian music.

EH: Plus a song from a 1970's Bollywood Indian movie. The film is called "Don" and it's kind of a Mafia film, so it's pretty surf guitary, horn sectiony, kind of thing that we may add a few unexpected elements into it.

JD: I bet you will and we should expect an interesting title for the CD and probably and even more interesting catch phrase to go with it. Speaking of interesting catch phrases, who came up with the wonderful line that you see on your CD "Four Higher", "Autorickshaw, not just dangerous Asian public transportation?"

EH: That came out of a preview article in a newspaper from Guelph, Ont. called Echo Weekly, I think. That was the by-line at the beginning of the article and we really liked it because quite often people focus on just the musical side of things and we thought that was kind of cool and catchy, so we started using it ourselves.

JD: It is so cool! What response are you getting from the Indo-Asian community in North America to your music.

SS: We seem to be getting a really positive response. I think because of the type of fusion music�the hybrid that we are doing�we are making it accessible to people of all ages and all walks of life and all cultures. I think they appreciate that we are trying to be sensitive to the traditions that we are borrowing from and we've had a really positive response to it so it makes us want to go farther with our music and our arrangements and compositions.

someone who really knows the music can hear that we are not just haphazardly throwing things together into some kind of bizarre salad EH: ... and I also think that because Suba is highly trained in South Indian classical music and I've been trained in North Indian classical percussion tabla for 15 years and Debashis (Sinha) our drummer has studied as a youth and studied with Suba's father (Trichy Sankaran) and various other people and even Rich (Brown) our bass player has studied South Indian classical music�that we are very true to the tradition when we delve into Indian classical music, so that someone who really knows the music can hear that we are not just haphazardly throwing things together into some kind of bizarre salad. We are keeping the recipe intact and tastefully--we think is tasteful anyways�adding things on top of the structure and the raga and the tala structure to keep it authentic and true to its roots.

JD: OK, now it's time for the tough personal questions. What's in your CD players this week?

SS: Ah, this week. Peter Gabriel�I have a five CD changer and I don't think it's full but I believe it's Peter Gabriel, Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan and one of my father's CDs, Trichy Sankaran.

JD: What about you, Ed?

EH: For me it's been the Bollywood Brass Band�a fantastic band which is modeled of a brass band out of India which plays popular music from India�so the Bollywood Brass Band, U Srinivas, who is a South Indian mandolin virtuoso and I was actually listening to some Peter Gabriel as well, so there's a common thread and I believe it was a Swapan Chaudhuri tabla solo, which was the last thing before I left home.

JD: Cool. Well I'd like to thank you for taking the time to talk with me. When you are doing five shows in a weekend in the blazing heat--it's pretty incredible that you guys can make it through all these shows. It's hard just being in it and listening. Hats off to you and all the performers that are playing this weekend.

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