MUMBAI: Award-winning Brazilian guitarists Luiz Bueno and Fernando Melo (Duofel…) met Miles Davis alumni percussionist Badal Roy, almost accidentally and a unique friendship of love, respect and appreciation of each others’ skills was sparked off. From this liaison was born a brilliant acoustic, live performance by the trio which is captured in the album The Reflecting Pool… – now in stores across India on the IndiaBeat label.
Guitarists Bueno and Melo have been a pair since 1977. They play Brazilian guitar rooted in the country’s Portuguese tradition. Their popularity in Brazil and USA won them opening act performances for the legendary Hermeto Pascoal. Today Duofel is sold out for every performance in the Americas and Europe.
Badal Roy’s story is no less unique. Born in Comilla in undivided Pakistan, Roy, a mostly self taught tabla exponent, went to New York to study statistics in the late 1960s. His part time performances at clubs to earn pocket money, found an audience in none other than jazz legend Miles Davis. Davis recruited Roy as part of his bold new electric sound. The rest is history. Over the years Roy ended up performing with Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Mann, John McLaughlin, Yoko Ono, Dave Liebman, and many others
The Reflecting Pool… album features 9 tracks performed in front of live audiences. The sound of this music is refreshingly up tempo, yet classically rooted and interspersed with elements of jazz.
IndiaBeat (www.indiabeat.in), which has had a popular presence on the Internet as an online radio station and MySpace since 2006, covers the genres of Indian classical, jazz, progressive rock and fusion music. The music label was launched in June 2008. The Reflecting Pool… is their 10th release.