Enjoy evenings filled with jazz and blues

Blues band Smokestacks and Bardos, a travelling jazz band, are here to entertain Puneites. Debarati Palit gives you a lowdown

Blues band Smokestacks and Bardos, a travelling jazz band, are here to entertain Puneites. Debarati Palit gives you a lowdown

Bardos

The band members of Bardos

Bardos is a two-week old band that is performing in the city for the first time, though some of its members are already popular musicians in their own right. This band is a group of travellers, who are on a quest for good music around the world. They are influenced by original compositions and are also into jazz rock interpretations of existing jazz standards. WHAT's ON asked Joshua from Bardos about what can Puneites expect.

What can we expect from your performance?
We will mostly play original compositions written by Sanjay Joseph. We will arrange jazz standards and will also play some cover numbers from Giant Steps, Dolphin Dance, Steve Wonder, Nitin Soni, Seal and Jimmy Hendrix.

Who all form the band?
Varun Venkit (percussion) is a clinical psychologist while Sanjay Joseph (guitar) is a full-time musician and has worked with music directors like Vishal and Shekhar, Among Jamir (bass) is a researcher and Ashima Iyer (vocals), is doing her Masters in Economics. I play the drums and percussion and I belong to Australia. Though, we are just two weeks old, Sanjay, Varun and I have been playing for much longer than that.

How do you manage to practice?
It takes effort to manage time and it's a reality among musicians that you need to practice whenever you have the time. But we do weekend practices and even when two or three members are available.u00a0u00a0

Are you daunted by the competition from local bands?
I am not from Pune so I cannot comment on other bands. I do not want to talk about competition as we are here to enjoy music.

At: North Main, North Main Road, Koregaon Park.
On: April 10, from 8.30 pm onwards.
Entry: Free

Smokestacks

A past perfromance of Smokestacku00a0

Smokestacks is a two-and-half year old band, that consists of a mix of young as well as seasoned musicians. WHAT's ON chatted with Michael from Smokestacks and asked him how does the band manage to rehearse, and also juggle their busy professions.

What can we look forward to at your performance?
Basically, we will be playing blues and folk numbers. The numbers are written by our band member, Anup. We are not a cover band and like presenting original chords.

Tell us more about youru00a0 band members.
The band is a combination of IT professionals-cum-musicians. It includes Anup Kumar (lead vocalist), Vidula Tade (vocals), Micheal Thomspon (harmonica), Vishal Gore (guitar/base), and Sarathy Korwar (drums), who has joined us recently.

It must be difficult to manage time to practice as all of you come from different professional backgrounds.
It is indeed difficult to mange the timings as the IT industry maintains long working hours and so we meet late at night. We play together for one hour and don't end up practicing too much. It does not take us much time to practice as we improvise to a certain level. Also, Anup and I share a strong musical connection and so we do not need to work very hard.

There many music bands in the city. Is the competition tough?
The kind of music we play is different from other bands. When we start playing, we find that the audience goes quiet, but by the end of the evening, they end up really enjoying our work. We enjoy the music as we play and it always works in our favour.

At: Shisha Cafe, ABC Farms, Mundhava Road, Koregaon Park.
On: April 9, from 8.30 pm onwards.
Entry: Free