Preview: All Starr Jamm First Anniversary

For a year now, Sameer Malhotra, better known by his moniker Daddy, has been hosting gigs at a retail outlet in Mumbai, opening up an alternative venue for both artists and audiences. Malhotra kickstarted All Starr Jamm in May 2012 at the Jack & Jones store as an invite-only event, but the well-attended monthly gig has been open to public since September last year. Over the year, city musicians such as Uday Benegal, Sidd Coutto and Ankur Tewari, Agnee’s Mohan and Koko have performed at the event.

Tonight, as part of their first anniversary celebrations, All Starr Jamm will feature a lineup of artists from Mumbai and Kolkata. Shaa’ir + Func’s Monica Dogra, who performed at the launch edition of this music series, returns to jam with Sridhar/Thayil’s Suman Sridhar, The Supersonics’ Ananda Sen and Neel And The Lightbulbs frontman Neel Adhikari. “Ananda has been gigging across the country and was supposed to play in Mumbai and Pune this week, but it got canned, so he was good to play here,” says Adhikari adding, “I was planning to go off on my honeymoon to Goa and then decided to stop in Mumbai for the gig and head to Goa the next day.”

With the Kolkata artists currently in town, the four musicians have managed to find just enough time to jam. At Sitara Studio, the group has been putting in extra hours and are almost ready with the setlist a day before the gig. “I literally met them on Sunday where we sat around sharing our music.  For me, what is exciting about all-star jams is the opportunity to do something that you’ve never done before… to have other musicians interpret your music in a way that hasn’t been done before… to reinvent… to mashup… to experiment.  That’s not an easy feat with people who have hardly met and never played with one another…but I think that’s what makes this whole thing so exciting.  it’s like jumping off a cliff,” says Dogra.

This will be the first time Dogra jams with Adhikari as the Kolkata musician performs “Broke” by his band Neel And The Lightbulbs. “Monica will doing a Fiona Apple song alongwith  ”˜Broke’ since we realized that the two songs have a similar chord progression,” adds Adhikari.  Dogra, on her part, will debut some of her solo material which includes tracks such as “I Wonder” and “Good Thing” at the show. “I’ve also conceived of a bunch of the mashups we are going to perform, mostly in an effort to create space for other musicians and interpretations of material that Neel has already performed with Neel and The Lightbulbs, and Ananda has done with The Supersonics. ” On her collaboraton with Suman, Dogra adds: “Suman will be performing some of her original solo material. One song in particular will blow people’s minds… it’s a complicated meter in 3 and 7…and a heart-wrenching melody she improvised over ”˜Bitches Brew’ (Miles Davis)…it is called “Feio”.

A very hungry Ananda Sen, who walked in late at the jam studio with a pack of Oreos, says he will be showcasing some of his solo material too. “It’s just a song called ”˜It’s Alright’ and Monica will come and do a cover over it,” he says, adding that they will also be jamming to a Supersonics songs. 

Aditya Ashok on drums, Sonu Sangameswaran on bass, Vaibhav Wavikar on percusssions, Karan Joseph on keyboards and Pradeep Mathews on guitar will also be part of the 90-minute set at the All Starr Jamm. 

All Starr Jamm feat Monica Dogra, Suman Sridhar, Ananda Sen and Neel Adhikari will take place at the Vero Moda/ Jack & Jones store, Linking Road, Santa Cruz (W), 9 pm onwards. Entry: Rs 500 (redeemable at the store, free alcohol). For details, click here.