‘It’s a pleasure to play with him’

Violinist L. Subramaniam eager to serve up musical fusion with Ernie Watts

L. Subramaniam is trained in the Carnatic music tradition as well as Western classical. The son of two accomplished musicians, he began actively playing in the early 1970s, and has over 200 recordings to his credit.

Among the many collaborations he has pursued while developing his reputation for exemplary fusion in his compositions is the duo he shares with tenor saxophonist Ernie Watts at 2017’s Indian Summer Festival. L. Subramaniam took time to answer some questions about the show:

Q: How did you and Ernie Watts first come together to perform?

A: Ernie and I have been playing together for decades. He has done tours with me in India, the U.S. and around the world. On my latest album Beyond Borders, which is not yet released, Ernie has been featured on two tracks. He was in India in 2010 for the Lakshminarayana Global Music Festival, and we had a great tour. It’s always a pleasure to play with him.

It’s not unusual to find Indian classical musicians and jazz musicians joining together, but the saxophone is certainly not one of the instruments usually associated with this fusion. Aside from perhaps Charles Lloyd and Ernie Watts, I can’t think of that many examples. The idea that finding common ground within these challenges is both creative and political has been mentioned, do you think anything of this?

My earliest collaboration with saxophone was with Frank Morgan on the track Feeling Lonely, which was on my 1981 album Fantasy without Limits. I’ve liked the saxophone, and I’ve also collaborated with Bud Shank, Tom Scott, John Handy, and others on almost all of my albums like Blossom, Indian Express, and others.

As someone trained in two musical systems, you must have gained insight into how tone and scale influence composing, not to mention complex aspects of time. Do you compose from either system or have you found your own?

I’ve created my own system using the strength of both Indian and Western roots. I’ve taken lots of polyrhythmic features from my Indian roots, and the harmonic structure which I’ve used is a new concept.

What can we expect to hear at the performance at the Indian Summer Festival?

We hope we can give the audience more than they expect. I’m looking forward to performing at the Indian Summer Festival again. Last time we had a great Carnatic performance at Stanley Park, and I love that there are great audiences for Indian classical, jazz, orchestral and global music.