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That's Right: Jazz And Rock Fusion, From Nepal

LIANE HANSEN, host:

The small country of Nepal stretches from Mt. Everest in the north to its border with India in the south. Its music reflects its geography, from Himalayan folk tunes to Indian ragas. Now Nepalese musicians are fusing the traditional music with jazz and rock.

Reese Erlich visited Kathmandu and sent back this report.

(Soundbite of street sounds)

REESE ERLICH: Kathmandu is a city of around 900,000 people, the bustling economic and sometimes chaotic political center of Nepal. Just outside of town, down a quiet side street, sits a four-story building housing non-profits, a recording studio and a music school.

Roshan Sharma sits cross legged on the floor of a practice room holding a guitar-like instrument. It's called a chaturangui and has 22 strings.

Mr. ROSHAN SHARMA (Music Teacher, Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory): You can make it sound like a guitar...

(Soundbite of chaturangui music)

Mr. SHARMA: Sometimes like the guitar and like a sitar.

(Soundbite of chaturangui music)

ERLICH: The chaturangui is a modified version of the Hawaiian slide guitar that was brought to India decades ago. Local musicians added drone and sympathetic strings that can make it sound like a sitar. As Sharma picks with his right hand, his left hand slides a metal bar across the strings on the guitar neck, much like Hawaiian players or mainland American blues musicians.

(Soundbite of chaturangui music)

ERLICH: Sharma is experimenting with fusing elements of blues and jazz with North Indian music popular in Nepal. He's been particularly influenced by British jazz guitarist John McLaughlin, who studied Indian music for many years.

Mr. SHARMA: I really like jazz very much and I've been playing the guitar for like 20 years and listening to a lot of John McLaughlin stuff. And I'm - yes, I see the possibilities.

(Soundbite of chaturangui music)

ERLICH: Sitting next to Sharma is Rainer Posch, a German jazz saxophonist. They both teach here at the Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory. Posch says contemporary jazz is catching on in Nepal.

Mr. RAINER POSCH (Music Teacher, Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory): And the school is a very good thing. And there's a big demand. That's why I'm here to do this kind of basic work, like studies and all that. But I think it grows fast.

REESE: Do you want to try a little jam session and see if you can make anything work here?

Mr. POSCH: Sure do. Why not

(Soundbite of music)

ERLICH: The Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory was founded three years ago by European musicians living in Nepal. Rock music arrived with young adventurers in the 1960s and '70s. Posch says Nepalis still tell tales of visits by Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.

Mr. POSCH: In Nepal, I think, Western music came in, in the hippy time. So there was rock and roll and all that. So they know much more of these pop kind of thing, because that was a time when every hippy wanted to go to Nepal. I mean that was the thing and that's why here, this music much more spread out than jazz.

ERLICH: So it's not surprising that when a Nepali band called 1974AD, first formed in 1994, it played rock cover songs.

(Soundbite of music)

ERLICH: But as the band evolved, it was one of the first to fuse Nepali folk traditions with rock.

(Soundbite of music)

ERLICH: Manoj Kumar KC is the lead guitarist with 1974AD.

Mr. MANOJ KUMAR KC (Lead Guitarist, 1974AD): Because I grew up from this part of the world, maybe the kind of rock I play may not sound typically Western. It still sounds very Nepali.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. KUMAR KC: There are so many Nepali tunes, actually. Very popular Nepali folk tunes we try to incorporate in the music.

Mr. KUMAR KC: (Singing in Nepalese)

It's "Guransai Phulyo." Gurans is a rhododendron.

(Soundbite of song, "Guransai Phulyo")

1974AD (Band): (Singing in Nepalese)

ERLICH: Kumar KC sits in a recording studio across the hall from the jazz conservatory. Many of the rock fusion musicians regularly interact with the jazz players.

Mr. KUMAR KC: So you just play the first string there.

ERLICH: As he walks past a class where aspiring electric guitarists learn basic blues licks, Roshan Sharma says he encourages musicians to learn both Western music and traditional Nepali styles.

Mr. SHARMA: For me now, the distinctions are now getting narrower and narrower. And it seems from a point that all music is the same.

ERLICH: For NPR News, I'm Reese Erlich.

(Soundbite of music)

HANSEN: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.