Jazz tripping in India

Jazz band EYM Trio, on their maiden trip to India, talk about their wildly diverse musical backgrounds, collaborations on their tour and getting inspired by India

Elie Dufour, Marc Michel and Yann Phayphet of EYM Trio believe that they are from different musical traditions. But it’s when they come together that they create actual magic — jazz concocted with influences from across the world, improvised and asymmetric harmonies, something that they hope will be touched by the culture here in India. In the country for the first time, the French men are all set to tour Trivandrum, Chennai, Bengaluru on July 21, Goa on July 23, Pune on July 26, Ahmedabad on July 28 and New Delhi on July 29 to give us a taste of their sound.

“We are very excited. We have collaborations planned with Indian artistes, dancers, singers and percussion musicians for some of our concerts. We want to eat traditional food too (not too spicy!),” reveals Marc. In Ahmedabad and New Delhi, their music will resound with a jugalbandi — the sarangi, tablas and the ghungroo of the Kathak dancers. This, they hope, will be their first real project with India.

Starting out by playing music that they believed sounded “wilder”, their arrangements and influences are now clearer. They still can’t pick their favourite song though, because they see it all as sound. “According to the audiences, the chosen one would be grand pas,” says Marc, who wanted to be a scientist to start with, but as he heard his father play the guitar, he confesses that he cried. Now 26, Elie has been stuck on the piano ever since he played a random note as a child. “We come from different backgrounds — Yann comes from an electro-funk style, while Marc is from a jazz, folk and rock tradition. I’m a more world music kind of a guy,” adds Elie, who is trained classically too. He listens to the works of Anoushka Shankar, Pandit Ravi Shankar and Trilok Gurtu, and believes that Indian artistes are some of the “craziest” producers of rhythms in the world.

The boys who love to travel, play card games together, cook and eat, are looking for inspiration here in India. “Our next album Khamsin comes out in October. There are collaborations on this recording — accordion virtuoso Marian Badoï and Mohamed Abozekry, an amazing oud player joined us on several tunes,” says Marc. “Hopefully, we’ll compose our third disc, thanks to this trip. We expect a lot of things to happen and we also hope to find inspiration here,” adds Elie.