The Bollywood Brass Band is a brass band playing

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

and traditional

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n music, based in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The band was formed in 1992 to perform with the Shyam Brass Band from

Jabalpur Jabalpur is a city situated on the banks of Narmada River in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. According to the 2011 census, it is the third-largest urban agglomeration in Madhya Pradesh and the country's 38th-largest urban agglomeration. J ...

, India, at the International Festival of Street Music in London. They have continued to perform and record in a wide variety of musical styles, including

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

film hits, Bhangra,

qawwali Qawwali (Punjabi language, Punjabi: (Shahmukhi), (Gurmukhi); Urdu: (Nastaʿlīq, Nasta'liq); Hindi: क़व्वाली (Devanagari); Bengali language, Bengali: কাওয়ালি (Bengali alphabet, Bengali)) is a form of Sufi Isl ...

, Punjabi folk songs, and wedding songs, tinged with influences from

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

, other world musics, and modern

dance music Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded da ...

. They perform at weddings, world-music and street-music festivals, and cultural festivals. The Bollywood Brass Band is made up of more than ten musicians, playing

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...

sousaphone The sousaphone ( ) is a brass instrument in the tuba family. Created around 1893 by J. W. Pepper at the direction of American bandleader John Philip Sousa (after whom the instrument was then named), it was designed to be easier to play than ...

, and

snare SNARE proteins – " SNAP REceptor" – are a large protein family consisting of at least 24 members in yeasts, more than 60 members in mammalian cells, and some numbers in plants. The primary role of SNARE proteins is to mediate vesicle f ...

and bass drums and also features

Johnny Kalsi Johnny Kalsi is a British Indian ''dhol'' drum performer residing in London. He rose to prominence as a former member of Transglobal Underground and the founder of the Dhol Foundation. He also is a member of the Afro Celt Sound System and The Im ...

and members of the Dhol Foundation on

dhol Dhol (IPA: ) can refer to any one of a number of similar types of double-headed drum widely used, with regional variations, throughout the Indian subcontinent. Its range of distribution in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan primarily includes nort ...

drums. In 1995 the band created a parallel performing group: SamBhangra! plays both Indian and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian music, and consists of the horns and drums section of the Bollywood Brass band together with a samba bateria (a nine-piece percussion section), the Dhol Foundation (five Indian dhol drummers), the Four by Four Dancers (four Bhangra–Punjabi folk-style dancers), and four Brazilian samba dancers.

Discography

* 1999: '' The Bollywood Brass Band'' (Emergency Exit Arts) * 2002: ''Rahmania'' (Emergency Exit Arts) * 2005: ''Movie Masala'' (Emergency Exit Arts) * 2016: ''Carnatic Connection'', feat. violinist Jyotsna Srikanth * 2018: ''Carnatic Suite, A Day in Bangalore'' (EP), feat. violinist Jyotsna Srikanth

References

External links

*
"East Meets West Meets East Meet…"
by Teed Rockwell for ''India Currents'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Bollywood Brass Band, The Bhangra (music) musical groups Musical groups from London Filmi British world music groups Musical groups established in 1992