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Going deeper into dissonance

A snippet of poetry, recited in French, precedes the mystical notes that leads into the title track of Ambianse de…

Going deeper into dissonance

Amyt datta.

A snippet of poetry, recited in French, precedes the mystical notes that leads into the title track of Ambianse de Danse. The poem illustrates what the track is about — the ambience of the preparation of a dance, which never happens.

The underlying context is about life itself, where a lot of things don’t happen even though we prepare for it. There are bright and dark sides to life, and Amyt Datta, through his instrumental music, sheds light on the darker side.

There is a reason for that. “The world and society is chaotic! I knew honest and fair people who died, whereas crooked people are rich and happy. Children are getting shot, women are getting raped. Seeing all this makes me angry. That’s constant!” said Datta.

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He thinks his DNA maybe wired in a way which enables him to find beauty in darkness and dissonance. “Darkness is good. Only because of the existence of darkness, does one understand the value of bright and white, and vice versa.

There’s mystique involved in it. Most of the time, bright music is on-the-face, where you can compare it to a beautiful sky, sunny day, flowers and butterflies.

But for dark elements, you need to go down beneath the soil, into the darkness of the earth and see what it is. And there’s a fair amount of thinking involved to understand what dark beauty is. I think like that. I don’t know why I like darkness but I like to play around with dissonance, darkness, complexity and mystical energy,” said Datta.

Ruthless when it comes to writing music, his songs mostly develop out a visual which he sees in his head. Then, musical notes are ascribed to it, giving it form.

There is a couch where he sits every night with a cigarette and thinks it out, without touching the instrument. At times, the vision or the seed of the idea is triggered by an incident, object or even a fascinating song title.

Years of experience and playing culminated to give him what he was, and is still seeking, his own voice. But this voice is out-of-the-box and to get him, a listener needs to be open minded and a little bit educated about music. “I’m hoping that the audience gives me a fair bit of chance to explain what I’m saying. If they listen to me, they’ll get a vibe,” said Datta.

His music is hard to describe, but likes calling it ‘one world music’. “It is structured but chaotic at the same time. One moment could be in Persia, and the next in India. Half a bar could be jazz.

I love that confused space, but it is very calculated,” said Datta, “What got caught in my radar is coming out. This is because so many things have influenced my growing and it’s just a direct reflection of that emotional output.”

He believes that music isn’t just about playing an instrument. “It’s a story of life. You can’t mess with it. It’s beautiful in a not very straight way. Any art form is like that,” said Datta, “And music is fine art. One needs to know the fine lines of it’s functioning. Just a few notes and scales won’t give you music.

One has to get into the subject beyond the notes — what the notes are doing, what they are trying to say. Then, one gets into the history of it. If I play one note of a scale, it says something while another note says something else. That is the philosophy of the scale itself. If one says red, they mean red. But I ask, which shade of red? That depth is where the philosophy lies.”

In his opinion, artists are the thinkers who raise the required questions. But then again, such occupations are marginalised. People take judgemental calls when it comes to musicians, and it is still not looked upon as a proper job like any other.

Teaching since 1981, he has students who come from as far as Chakdaha and Kalyani. “There was a time when I wanted to quit teaching but Jayshree told me that if I stopped, then this race would become extinct, and it is a service to society,” said Datta, “I enjoy parting the knowledge that I collect and am very open with information but it is the student’s responsibility to do a good job and not sell out and do some trash in the name of music.”

Besides Ambianse de Danse (2013), Datta has released two other albums, Pietra Dura (2015) and Amino Acid (2016). Though Jivraj Singh is his companion for the albums, he plays live with a separate quartet.

He also plays with Anjan Dutt and occassional gigs with Subhen Chatterjee’s fusion band Karma. A recent endeavour is the experimental world music outfit Ziba.

He said, “I always had this inner feeling that I wanted to do something which is like a middle ground. In the face of it, it’ll be popular music and people will get it in the first shot, but it also should have something which is satisfying for me. So I designed this band and handpicked the musicians. It has got the music festival vibe.”

Datta has come up with an alternate tuning, which he calls OTX – Octave Tuning [E]Xperiment. “It sounds bizarre. The octaves get weirdly flipped. The music loses its evenness, which I like. It is again getting further away from the audience’s ears. That’s me. I want to play live, but I’m constantly doing things that is taking me away from the audience. But as always, I’m not going to give the audience what they want. I’m going to do my thing. Take it or leave it,” said Datta.

Improvisation is what he does all the time, finding the thrill in the uncertainty. “Improvisation is composition on spot, whereas composition is improvising with time,” said Datta, “Onstage, when I’m playing I think I am blank. It’s more of an instinctive vibe. If you’re thinking, that means you’re not there yet. I do think at times, but that is in patches, not throughout the gig.”

Dabbling in this art for forty five years, Datta shows no signs of stopping. The hunger for exploring and experimenting still rages strong. His song The Chase perfectly describes this.

“You start off thinking that you have a destination to reach but when you arrive there, you realise that the destination is somewhere else. And that keeps happening. That’s why I keep doing it. The moment I know there’s an end, I’m gonna quit,” said Datta.

The delirium of Shiva

 

Datta’s first love was the blues which he courted with the New Blues Connexion, but Shiva, one of India’s first professional rock bands, was where he earned his chops.

Though they played covers, they enjoyed cult status and travelled all over the country playing shows to packed crowds of thousands.

From unknowingly staying in a terrorist’s house in Nagaland to taming a hostile crowd and having them eat off their hands to jumping onto trains along with equipment, Shiva had a wild as well as hard time.

“I learnt a lot playing with Shiva, specially to be on big stages in front of big crowds. We used to travel a lot! Mostly by train, without sleeping, and being ready for the gig after just taking a bath,” said Datta.

The Skinny Alley spotlight

Skinny Alley

Meeting Gyan and Jayshree Singh, who passed away recently, was pivotal for Datta as it led to bands such as Airwave and Pop Secret. Creating original music happened through Skinny Alley, which released two albums — Escape the Roar (2003) and Songs from the Moony Boom (2007), and later its darker and experimental alter-ego Pinknoise, which released The Dance of the Diaspora (2014).

“With Gyan and Jayshree, I learnt how to put music out in three minutes, and play effective background parts behind the singer,” said Datta, “Jayshree, my best friend, taught me how to be a musician and do what the song demands. She made me realise that the spotlight isn’t always on me, but that I’m in an unseen dark corner making the song hip.

“She also taught me how to dress, behave on stage, and imbibe my natural style and be that. She is the best English lyricist in the country, ever. She didn’t go heavy, but spoke about all that in a beautiful, simplistic way.”

Brothers’ legacy

Amyt and Monojit Datta
Amyt and Monojit Datta.

Growing up together and playing in the kitchen to sharing the stage with numerous bands, cousins Amyt and Monojit Datta remain two unique souls. An old house near Jora Girja stands as testimony to this duo’s teaching legacy as well, where Amyt taught guitar on the upper floor while Monojit taught percussion on the ground floor. Though Monojit was a Latin purist and Amyt got inclined towards rock, jazz and fusion, they had formed an avant-garde world music outfit called D for Brother and released an album by the same name in 1992.

Speaking about Monojit, who passed last October, Datta said, “He was one of a kind. This country has lost a jewel which it didn’t get at all. It was unfortunate that he was in Calcutta, and not Bombay.No one got him, including Someplace Else, where he spent a lot of years. It is very sad. He played music from so far — Cuba. He didn’t go to Cuba and people thought he was from there when they heard him play. There’s no one who played the conga or percussion as authentic as him in the country, ever, and I doubt if there is or will be another Indian who can take his shoes.”

 

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