Dhaka hosts World Music Festival 2011

Dhaka hosts World Music Festival 2011

DhakaLive's Faizul Khan Tanim gets blown away by the electric grooves at this year's World Music Festival

The story that Dhaka World Music Fest 2011 weaved, sounds like this – in an epic stage of sound and lights feauring artistes of mammoth proportions, audiences felt peace explode in the form of music that was heard beyond Bangladesh.

As I arrived at one of the practice sessions before the two-day festival, I got an amazing education as to how the genre of world music sounds. The band on stage was jamming Esho Dekhi Kanar Haatbajar. I have heard this song plenty of times before, but this time it was utterly different. The heavy energy of the music had much to do with the improvised sounds of foreign instruments along with sounds of local instruments. It was like the world saluting our folk culture in their own style.

This unbelievable energy I speak of cultivated as Close Up star Rinku was on the mic with Nazrul and Shofik on dhol, Jahangir Alam playing the bashi, Jillur Rahman on the trumpet, Alom playing ektara, Ataur playing mondira, Kishon Kan on piano, Tansay Omar on drums, Oreste Noda playing conga, Javier Camilo on bongo, Jimmy Martinez playing bass, and Phil Dawson was on guitars. Sahan Satis and Yukini Hagio were the creative sound engineers that blew away my mind.

These members are all part of the bands and artistes Shahjahan Munshi, Rob Fokir, Baby Akhtar, Shumel, Motimba, Lalon, Lokkhi Terra, Dele Sosimi, Tunde Jegede, Ajob, Soothsayers and Porobashi.

Celebrating International World Mother Language through the global language of music, the first-ever Dhaka World Music Fest 2011 was held from February 4 to 5 at Sultana Kamal Mohila Krira Complex in Dhanmondi, ushering in an era of international music to this cosmopolitan city. The festival brought the eclectic grooves and hypnotic rhythms of Cuban-funk, Afro-beat, Bauls of Bengal, Reggae, Pala and Bangla-Afro-Latin fusion together in a melting pot of organic sounds and earthly vibrations.

The sound created by these musicians defined world music all over again. This jamming was so intoxicating that one could follow Alice into Wonderland while on their journey of musical madness.

This was just a practice session at an apartment with no acoustics so one can imagine what happened on-stage and at the venue. When the lights flooded the stage, the music flooded the audiences with peace, by far the best sound produced in Bangladesh at a live concert.

And the audiences just felt that when Soothsayers took the stage. Their organic mix of reggae, Afro funk, urban jazz, dub grooves mixed in a whirlpool of emotions sent ripples of trippy effects. They were one of the best and made the crowd realise why Soothsayers, led by Bangladeshi-British saxophonist Idris Rahman and trumpeter Robin Hopcraft, along with the intoxicating vocals of Julia Biel, kicked up a live storm and are hailed in the UK as one of the hippest bands.

One of the vocalists, Sohini Alam, of Lokkhi Terra said, “This is one of the greatest initiatives for Bangla folk and for our country. The bands which performed at this enormous two-day gig are big names in the UK. They are such huge names that we pay to see them live just to be musically motivated.”

Another musician from the troupe Justin Thurgur, who plays trombone for Lokkhi Terra, Motimba and Dele Sosimi, felt ecstatic about playing in Bangladesh for the third time. He was wearing a t-shirt sporting images of peace and had the loudest grin, “I have been working with Kishon for the past 15 years and it feels different playing here in Dhaka. The culture and the folk music is so rich and beautiful that we can communicate with each other with this universal language and the language which speaks about peace and nothing but peace.”

The festival's vision was conceptualised and spearheaded by Runi Khan of Culturepot Global,UK, to secure a sustainable place for Bangladesh's musical heritage in the global cultural arena. According to the organisers, it opens up a meaningful two-way musical dialogue between Bangladesh and the world at large. They wish to create an annual international music platform to present the rich variety of Bangladesh's indigenous & traditional musical styles to the world.

One of the organisers of this magnificent event Mikhail Islam said, “The great cities in the world have a tradition of holding music festivals and since Dhaka is becoming a mega city, it is high time that we have such events. I think Kishon Khan worked here as a great catalyst bringing all these bands here since he collaborates with most of them in the UK which fantastically complements the whole idea of a world music fest.”

The festival has been organised and curated by Culturepot Global,UK, Excalibur Entertainment, JatrikTravels and Symbiance Partners, Bangladesh and sponsored by Grameenphone.

The venue was decorated and boasted an ambience which elevated the psyche of the crowd and orchestrated a fusion of peace, love and understanding. With the juice bars in the back and brilliant live music, this gig will certainly be one of the biggest events of 2011.

[For more pictures of the concert, see the framework on page 32.]