Join us at the Dresher Ensemble Studio for more West Oakland Sessions, a collaboration between Jazz in the Neighborhood and New Performance Traditions. This series of concerts will feature improvised music traditions from around the globe, generously supported by JAMBAR. Please read through and comply with the studio's COVID policy.

Saxophonist George Brooks and pianist Utsav Lal create a dynamic new music drawing on the traditions of Indian classical music, American jazz, western classical and contemporary improvisation. Their association began in 2020, just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, when Brooks brought Utsav Lal to California for a performance featuring artists from India and the US. The bond was immediate and deep, and despite the challenges of living 3000 miles apart (Brooks in California and Lal in New York) they continued to collaborate and create new music. Brooks and Lal have recorded together remotely during the pandemic, and have performed live at the Edith Wharton Home in Lenox, MA; in Telluride, CO; and at the Stanford Jazz Festival. They are looking forward to this premiere performance with Keshav Batish and Mat Muntz.

George Brooks is an award-winning saxophonist and composer, acclaimed for successfully bridging the worlds of jazz and Indian classical music. He is the founder of seminal Indian fusion groups Summit with Zakir Hussain, Bombay Jazz with Ronu Majumdar and Larry Coryell, Raga Bop Trio with Steve Smith and Prasanna, Kirwani Quartet with Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, and Elements with Kala Ramnath and Gwyneth Wentink.

Brooks has collaborated extensively with American composer Terry Riley and has performed with genre-defining artists Etta James, Anthony Braxton, Jaki Byard, Talvin Singh, Kronos Quartet, The Temptations, Michael McClure and Ray Manzarek. He appears regularly at major festivals throughout India, and was a featured soloist on John McLaughlin’s 2008 Grammy nominated “Floating Point” CD.

As a composer, Brooks has received commissions from the American Composers Forum, EnActe Arts, Natya Dance Theater, Opera Piccola, Navarasa Dance Theater, Intermusic SF, Arts International, California Jazz Conservatory, USArtists, New Music USA, Mosaic America, Real Vocal String Quartet, SFMOMA, Met Life Creative Connections and Gwyneth Wentink. His compositions have been performed by Yo-Yo Ma, members of the Liverpool Philharmonic, and can be heard in the Merchant/Ivory film, “The Mystic Masseur”.

"The music on this recording has blown me away. Brooks plays the saxophone with a tone, rhythmic concept and harmonic concept that sounds totally new to my ears. The result is one of the most exciting saxophone records I have ever heard." - Saxophone Journal

"The Alchemy...is a transformational fusion of Eastern and Western traditions. Brooks soprano work is some of the finest in almost any genre - light, fluid and precise." - Ralph Miriello, Notes on Jazz

“Bristling with east meets west polytonality and rhythmic intrigue and tinged with a Trane-like spirituality... Blowing gorgeous tones and fluidly unravelling complex ideas...(Brooks) succeeds to a startling and almost rapturous degree." - SF Bay Guardian

" A fascinating set...Exotically lyrical...gracefully bridges seemingly antithetical disciplines.” - Billboard Magazine, Critics Choice 

"Able to play in the tradition of Coltrane and Dexter Gordon one moment and with Terry Riley or Kronos Quartet the next Brooks is fast becoming a leading voice in the realm where jazz and north Indian improvisation meet." - SF Bay Guardian

Utsav Lal is the rarest of pianists. Born and raised in New Delhi, where he trained in Indian classical music with dhrupad vocalist Ustad Wassifudin Dagar, Lal subsequently received Bachelors and Masters degrees in jazz and Western classical music at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the New England Conservatory of Music. Lal was named a Young Steinway Artist in 2010 by piano-makers, Steinway & Sons.

Known as the ‘Raga Pianist’, Lal has set a precedent with his innovative handling of Indian Classical music and has garnered an impressive career with solo performances at Carnegie Hall, Southbank Centre-London, Kennedy Center-DC, Steinway Hall NY and extensive collaborative work with Irish, Scottish and Indian musicians. Since his debut album release, ‘Piano Moods of Indian Ragas” (Times Music 2008), Utsav has released six subsequent CDs including the world’s first solo on the microtonal "Fluid Piano".

Treading the careful line between an ancient tradition and the innate desire for innovation with utmost respect, Utsav Lal’s music is influenced by Indian classical tradition but also gains inspiration from Persian piano tradition, Australian minimalist piano trio - The Necks, and piano innovators like Ran Blake, Anthony Coleman, Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou and Cecil Taylor. Lal has challenged commonly understood ways of improvisation to develop his own unique voice for the piano.

Respected for his versatility, Lal is featured on international collaborations with Martin Hayes, Dennis Cahill, Winifred Horan, Australian Contemporary Circus Theatre CIRCA, Talvin Singh, George Brooks, Miles Okazaki and Rajna Swaminathan. His music has a quiet intensity and is acclaimed for its sincerity and depth. 

“Lal continues to blend the improvisational mystique of Indian classical melodies, particularly Dhrupad-influenced raga interpretations, with the compositional framework of the piano” - Rolling Stone India

“A brave new sonic world” - The Hindu

“A deeply personal pianistic meditation” - Songlines UK

Mat Muntz is a composer, bassist, and experimental bagpiper. Whether working as a composer and bandleader on projects like The Vex Collection and his own sextet Phantom Islands, as a longtime collaborator with vocalist Astrid Kuljanic, or as an in-demand sideman in New York's jazz and experimental music scenes, Mat brings his improvisational sensitivity and fiercely independent sound to every performance.

Mat graduated from Manhattan School of Music in 2016 and has performed across North America, Europe, and China at venues including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Jazz Standard, Blue Note Beijing, and the Umbria Jazz Festival. His compositions have been premiered at The Shed, Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, and the Moers Festival in Germany. In addition, Mat has been the recipient of awards from Brooklyn Arts Council and the New York Foundation for The Arts.

Keshav Batish is a multi-instrumentalist music-maker based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He comes from a family of musicians, learning rāg, tāl, and their cross-cultural applications chiefly from his father Pandit Ashwin Batish. In addition, he studies and performs with Dr. Hafez Modirzadeh, curator of Chromodality, an enriching and embodied approach to bridging musical worlds. Beginning in the Fall of 2022, Keshav will begin pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His work explores premeditated and spontaneous compositional schemes that weave strands of interpersonal and ancestral relationships.