CHARLIE MARIANO & R.A. RAMAMANI
World music lovers take note - a long shared history is documented here:
The common history of Charlie Mariano and R.A. Ramamani does not begin in a dreamy South Indian village, as would be fitting for a musical fairy tale, but takes us back many years, to Munich in southern Germany in 1980.
Charlie had met Karnataka College of Percussion when the rock group EMBRYO , in which Charlie was a regular guest soloist, invited Mr. T.A.S. Mani and 10 other musicians from KCP to join their first European tour.
Rama Mani, however, was not with them on this very first tour; she was preparing for the birth of Karthik and was, in turn, fully occupied in Bombay with the formation of her first fusion band “Jazz Yatra” with Luis Banks and Ramesh Shotam, among others.
Since then, Rama Mani and KCP have frequently come to Europe in collaboration with Western rock and jazz musicians and promoters. For a generation, the US saxophonist and the Indian composer and singer have thus got to know each other and explored their own and each other’s possibilities.
Two strong personalities face each other in the recording of “Om Keshav”. One is convinced that music stands for itself, the other believes that the soul determines the quality and beauty of music. Despite these seemingly contradictory views and thanks to intensive rehearsals in the rooms of the Karnataka College of Percussion, a harmonious and melodious album was created in only four days of concentrated studio work, in which all the pieces were right from the first take. Also thanks to the extremely sensitive guitarist Amid Heri.
Serious not furious. Through such a long, intensive interaction with each other has created something like a family structure, which audibly characterizes this work.