Gig Review: Solo Piano Evening with Nipun Cheema and Pradyumna Singh Manot at Mumbai’s Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre

A solo piano recital is a delicate and difficult proposition for the pianist and also for the audience. Both require to focus on the proceedings. Concentrating on the sound of one instrument alone is not always an easy proposition. On July 21st, 2023, a concert involving two separate solo piano players was staged at The Cube at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) complex in Mumbai.

Two accomplished pianists performed on this occasion and the outcome was a delightful evening for the audience, aided to a great extent by the intimate setting at the auditorium. The piano performances of Nipun Cheema from Chandigarh and Pradyumna Singh Manot (Paddy) from Kolkata were outstanding, though in contrasting styles and approaches. While Cheema played introspective, often intense interpretations of his own compositions, Paddy was at his fluent best playing well-known jazz tunes with his own twist of emotion thrown in. The brilliant acoustics and a well-tuned Steinway piano enhanced the aural experience considerably.

Cheema played a set of compositions with verbal explanations about the significance of each of them. The playing was precise and well-enunciated. The challenge was to try and match the music with the theme of the piece; it became an interesting exercise to find the context. How exactly should a “Deluge” sound on a piano? Finding the parallel made Cheema’s concert a listener’s delight.

Cheema played “Deluge,” “Unaccustomed Earth,” “Le Blanc N’existe Pas” (French for the color white does not exist) and on to “Everything was Forever” and ended with a lively “False Alarm.” The small audience (the auditorium has a capacity of about 80) were certainly wrapped around the charm of Cheema’s music and musical thought process.

Enter Paddy for his solo hour. He played nine numbers in all, beginning with a very subtle entry into “My Funny Valentine” and ending with John Lennon’s poignant “Imagine.” In between he got into a very creative phase, first with jazz master Dizzy Gillespie’s “Night in Tunisia” and then with John Coltrane’s highly complex composition “Giant Steps.” The latter is said to be one of the most challenging jazz pieces to play; Paddy reinvented this up-tempo song into a gentle, romantic ballad and played it quite beautifully. It would have surprised and pleased Coltrane himself! With “A Night in Tunisia,” a jazz evergreen, Paddy immersed himself into the soul of the composer, accentuating the changes within the composition with fluency.

An improvised blues number played in the style of Oscar Peterson echoed the approach of Peterson in no uncertain terms; for good measure, Paddy included musical quotes from Monk’s “Straight no Chaser” and Charlie Parker’s “Billie’s Bounce” to very pleasing effect.

His love for the Cuban sound was reflected in Paddy’s rendition of a ballad, “Lagrimosa Negra” (Black Tears) from Cuba. The Cuban sound of jazz has been an important part of Paddy’s repertoire in recent years. The beautiful ballad “It Could Happen to You” was played quite fluidly, inspired, we were told, by Keith Jarrett – the jazz piano legend.

All in all, it was an evening of sophisticated piano playing by two of India’s best jazz pianists at a venue that was perfect for the music played. We hope this is the first of many such concerts at the NMACC.

Sunil Sampat is a jazz critic and Contributing Editor of Rolling Stone India. Write to Sunil at jazzwala@gmail.com