On Saturday, June 11, a few musicians got together at a Bandra office. Flautist Rajeev Raja, singer-acoustic guitarist Subhash Kamath and lead guitarist Hitesh Dhutia tossed ideas around.
They were finalising the set list that their band, Wanted Yesterday, would perform at Friday’s blues and classic rock show at Blue Frog, Lower Parel.
Some pieces were confirmed: J.J. Cale’s ‘Call Me The Breeze’, Jethro Tull’s ‘Locomotive Breath’ and ‘Bouree’ and Bad Company’s ‘Feel Like Making Love’. Then there were also classics like ‘Sweet Home Chicago’ and ‘Mustang Sally’.
Creativity flowed, but that was natural; both Raja and Kamath have three decades of experience in the advertising and brand communications world. While Raja has started his own company, BrandMusiq, which helps brands develop a unique sonic identity, Kamath is CEO of the Indian division of global advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty. But music was their passion throughout.
The initial idea was to form a band of advertising professionals. Raja first teamed up with industry veteran Prabhakar Mundkur, formerly with the band Savages. Kamath joined a couple of years later, and they have been together, though Mundkur left citing personal reasons. Later, professional guitarist Dhutia came in; the rest of the group is made up of floating members.
Interestingly, the three performed at a gig on February 28 this year, a day before the iconic Kala Ghoda music store, Rhythm House, shut down. In front of a small, but highly enthusiastic audience, they played an original: ‘Rhythm House Blues’, which was created in just three days. That day, Raja also performed his adaptation of ‘Bouree’, which was uploaded on YouTube. It made it to Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson, who felt it was a “wonderful tribute”.
A self-taught musician, Bengaluru-bred Raja may have well made it to the Karnataka cricket team as a batsman, hadn’t an injury come in the way.
Soon, he started learning the blues harp, and eventually got hold of a two-rupee bamboo flute. Wanting to learn the western style, he picked up a Chinese flute and then became part of Imbroglio, a jazz band.
After years of live music, Raja released his album, Cosmic Chants, in 2013. He also conducts performance-based workshops outlining the history of jazz. In fact, in a few days, on July 2, Raja will be performing at the Tata Theatre, NCPA, with other musicians, in a show titled ‘The Beatles Jazzified’.
“Jazz aficionado and show organiser Sunil Sampat and I were discussing how to take jazz to the masses,” says Raja. “So we thought of jazzifying popular tunes. The first such show was in 2014. This time, we are focusing on The Beatles as the group has many fans in India. We will stick to the basic melodies, but improvise on the instrumental parts.”
Ading personal touch
Tonight, Raja, Kamath and Dhutia will be accompanied by bassist Karl Peters, drummer Vaibhav Vavikar and keyboardist Jaikrishnan Unnithan. Kamath says they will be performing known songs, and add their own element to make them sound different. Surely, it will be a great time for those who have grown up on 60s and 70s blues and rock.
The author is a freelance music writer
