Description

Celebrating the diverse diasporic cultures and music within India and of the Indian diaspora abroad, the Remembered Rhythms festival brought three groups of performers to the cities of Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad and Mumbai. The underlying theme was diaspora – of other cultures in India and the Indian diaspora itself.

The Sidi Goma represented the African Sidi community of Gujarat in India, D’Bhuyaa Saaj of the East Indian community from Trinidad and Rivers of Babylon, a London based group of Indian Jews participated in this event.
These CDs bring together the excitement of the tour as three groups with varying and exciting music toured seven cities at the same time crisscrossing the country, reviving their memories and roots for themselves as well as the audiences.

Sidi Goma: Live in India! (Audio CD)
The sounds of Africa and India are uniquely blended in the ecstatic Sufi ritual and devotional music of Sidi Goma. The ancestors of today’s African Sidi community first settled in Gujarat centuries ago. Yet, today’s Sidis still remember some of the songs, instruments and rhythms brought long ago from Africa. Combining their African roots with the multiple musics they encountered in India, the music of the Sidis is full of surprises at times familiar at times altogether new.

Rivers of Babylon: Live in India! (Audio CD)
The music performed by the Rivers of Babylon combines the religious and secular music of the Indian Jews – the Baghdadi an the Bene Isreali tradition of India, consisting folk songs, hymns for Sabbaths, festivals and life cycle events, and Middle Eastern instrumental items. The languages of the songs range from Hebrew to Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic Arabic and Marathi. Harking back to their Indian roots, the Rivers of Babylon include vintage songs from Indian films in their repertoire.

D’Bhuyaa Saaj: Live in India! (Audio CD)
Chutney is a popular Indian-Caribbean music, widely performed in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as in the Caribbean Diaspora. Chutney draws upon Indian folk traditions, devotional songs and film music, as well as from calypso, soca and rap. In addition to these, D’Bhuyaa Saaj’s repertoires includes “local classical music,” and feature some of the leading stars of Chutney from Trinidad and Tobago, on their first tour of India.

Remembered Rhythms: Live in India! (VCD)
A Video CD featuring Sidi Goma, Rivers of Babylon and D’Bhuyaa Saaj. This VCD brings a sampling of the performances of the three groups, providing a glimpse of the performance styles, musical instruments and dances, and is a perfect complement to the audio CDs.

All CDs are accompanied by notes on the communities, their culture and music by eminent scholars, and detailed track notes, along with discographies, bibliographies and photographs.