The mysterious language crafted by alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa might be considered “friendly avant garde” or “accessible outside” jazz. Raised in Boulder but a part of the New York scene for a decade now, he returns to Colorado, at Dazzle on Friday, with his working quartet.
“I’ve always thought that it has this complexity and esoteric whatever that people like to put on it,” Mahanthappa said of his collection of sharp, mathematically inspired compositions. “But it has this energy and momentum that has this wide appeal. I’m very conscious of how I write melodies. People can walk away with a song going on in their heads.”
And the tracks on last year’s “Codebook” (Pi) do stick with you, even if the complexities that go into the writing and improvising may not.
Mahanthappa good-naturedly does his best to explain it all.
“There are a good number of composers who have dealt with math, like Bach and Bartok. There’s this mathematical element to what they do, and there’s always been something (about that methodology) that fascinated me. And I was always into codes ever since I can remember,” Mahanthappa said.
“With ‘Codebook’ I wanted to be blunt with it. Almost every piece deals with some aspect of number theory or cryptology. There’s even a tune based on Pig Latin.”
You don’t have to be a mathematician to revel in the disc’s life and wit, though. I hear some of Sonny Rollins’ playfulness in Mahanthappa’s solo excursions, even if the younger man is playing an alto instead of a tenor.
While he appreciates the Rollins comparison, he name- checks the sax heroes of his youth.
“For a kid in Boulder, it was Grover Washington, Bird (Charlie Parker) and Michael Brecker,” he says.
Mahanthappa has digested all of their styles and a few others from the fringes of jazz, and forged his own sound. And with longtime collaborator/pianist Vijay Iyer, who’s also scheduled to appear in the quartet on Friday, he’s at the forefront of a new style that fuses recognized elements of the music with influences from his Indian heritage.
“We were chasing similar ideas,” he says of the beginnings of his partnership with the fleet-fingered Iyer. “But we also had this coincidentally shared background.
“His parents and my parents are South Indian. Our parents come from intellectual backgrounds. And we experienced the same kinds of feeling isolated and the same kinds of racism.”
The partnership has been rewarding, with a long-running string of critically admired discs under their own names as well as their duo, dubbed Raw Materials. In a sense, they’ve developed their own jazz brand in a field where it’s difficult to get noticed.
When Mahanthappa was growing up in Boulder, he’d occasionally busk by performing TV themes on the Pearl Street Mall. With his homecoming, and his polished band, will he be busting out any of that music at Dazzle?
“Sure,” he says with a laugh. “We’ll play (the theme songs from) ‘M*A*S*H,’ ‘Lou Grant’ and ‘Falcon Crest.”‘
Don’t count on it, but if he did decide to tackle such a project, it would no doubt make for some pretty involving music.
Rudresh Mahanthappa, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Friday, Dazzle, 930 Lincoln St.. Tickets are $20, $15 for Creative Music Works members. Call 303-839-5100.
Saxophonist Candy Dulfer headlines at the Boulder Theater Monday … on Friday, choose between trumpeter Hugh Ragin at Harry’s Chop House or the Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra and Neil Bridge at the Littleton United Methodist Church … rising trumpet star Ingrid Jensen appears at Dazzle on Saturday, the same night as Lannie Garrett and the Gypsy Swing Revue at Lannie’s Clocktower Cabaret … Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, Mike Dillon’s Go-Go Jungle and the unfortunately named Dead Kenny Gs should make for a progressive night at the Fox Theatre on Oct. 17.
