by Eshaan Sood
January 17th 2024 was a celebration of music that will forever be remembered in the history of GMI! While attending a masterclass or performance by a guest artist is a pretty normal experience at Global Music Institute, it never gets to a point where you think, “Did my school email just get hacked? This says Herbie Hancock and Dianne Reeves are coming to GMI!?” We’ve had the pleasure of hosting many esteemed musicians and professionals at GMI, but as an alumni of this music haven, I was not prepared for the stage they set for us all!
Entering the school 3 hours before the event, the energy in the room was palpable and electric. Everyone was buzzing with excitement, running around making sure all the last minute details were in place, grabbing coffee, sharing stories about where they first heard Herbie or Dianne. If there was a device to measure this excitement, it would have definitely broken. The Herbie Hancock Institute Of Jazz along with Dianne Reeves came to India as part of a cultural exchange organized by the American Embassy. The band featured six students of the institute led by Herbie Hancock and Dianne Reeves. The school opened its doors to the public, alumni, industry mentors and the musicians of Delhi to attend this event. We had over a hundred and twenty people come in, making our cozy auditorium even warmer. As an alum of the school, it was really great for me to come in and meet all my friends who I went to school with, the friends I used to nerd out over Herbie with, and share this joy. We all made our way to our seats to see what was in store for the day.
The performance began with Herbie playing his song Actual Proof with the band. The band featured Miles Lennux on Piano, Sasha Ripley on Tenor Saxophone, Alden Hellmuth on Alto Saxophone, Yakif Tsvietinsky on Trumpet, Ebunoluwa Daramola on Drums, and Destiny Digs on Bass. There is something beautiful about watching a master at work, nothing wrong can happen. You might think I am engaging in hyperbole but it is true. When things don’t go according to plan they just adapt in a split second, so you never get to tell as an audience member if something ever went wrong in the first place. This was Diane Reeves’s first trip to India, and on her request, a sitar player was to join them. This Sitar player was none other than Pt. Shubhendra Rao, a student of late Pandit Ravi Shankar. As Dianne started singing though, Murphy’s Law decided to kick in. Some of the wires came loose. Performances are meant to take you on an emotional roller coaster, but not when they come from technical hiccups. This resulted in Dianne’s microphone slightly cutting in and out. Now just rewind three sentences, when masters perform nothing wrong can really happen. Diane got away from her microphone and sang straight to the room. The band instantly adapted and supported her dynamically and the result you ask? A performance that moved me and I am sure many others to tears. Dianne took our large auditorium and turned it into a small sitting room where it felt like she was singing just for you.
When the song ended Dianne said when things start going wrong, pull on your music and if you stay with the music it can give you the power you need to get through any of these challenges.
“It was amazing to see their humble demeanour and how well they carried themselves in spite of some technical issues. The energy as well was something to definitely take away from considering how many decades they’ve been around!” said Anindo Bose, from Shadow and Light.
After this moving performance, we had a short exchange where Pt. Shubhendra Rao and his son Ishaan Rao shared a few stories and ideas about Hindustani Classical Music. Ishaan, a student at the Berklee College of Music right now, presented a piece he wrote on the Piano in Raag Jog based on a 13-beat cycle. The forum was then opened to audience questions. People asked, and the students of the institute and both Herbie and Dianne shared what they knew generously. The students spoke about how getting on stage with Herbie was always an experience that challenged their views and made them rethink certain ideas. Dianne drew some amazing distinctions between your voice as an instrument and your voice as an artist. She continued to tell us that we can have a great voice as an artist regardless of our voice on the instrument. Herbie shared an anecdote about VSOP, and watching him do his Miles voice in person was just the icing on the cake!
Last semester, before anyone knew that Dianne Reeves was going to be in GMI, the students had performed her arrangement of Waiting in Vain by Bob Marley. It was only natural that the students performed this rendition for her. As soon as the students started playing, it was the cutest thing to witness Dianne pull her phone out and record a snippet. The performance by the students was beautiful and if they were at all nervous I definitely could not tell. However, Dianne Reeves surprised us yet again. She got up on stage and decided to sing the song with the students. The smile on every performer’s face was begging to jump off their cheeks. Many of the people in the audience couldn’t help but let out a few tears of joy.
“It was probably the most inspiring experience in my life. It was one thing getting to hear legends like Herbie Hancock and Dianne Reeves in the flesh but seeing the institute band full of students our age being tutored by legends like them gave so much insight and perspective into that kind of education and the level of artistry!” said Tanisha Bathnagar, A GMI tribe member who was playing bass in that performance.
The evening was drawing to a close, but not before some people got on stage and played music with the students of the Hancock Institute. If you get a bunch of Jazz musicians in a room with their instruments, a jam session is inevitable. While we didn’t have time for more than two songs, we saw a great rendition of Alone Together sung by Aanya Sengupta with Pranay Verma on guitar and Divij Kapoor on Bass followed by some Tenor madness with me on guitar (hurrah!). The event was closed out by a performance of Renne Fleming’s arrangement of the Wayne Shorter Song Footprints. Two hours flew and we all gathered to get a group picture taken.
The event broke, people left, and some stayed back to talk to each other and the musicians in the band. Everyone holding on to the small bundle of joy that they had just received from that afternoon. I was thinking to myself on the drive back, about how I was supposed to have flown out back to New York three days before this event and how lucky I was to not have made that crazy mistake. It is one thing to hear a concert, it is another thing to go to a masterclass but this event? This was just a celebration of music and all the joy it can bring to the world and we were honored to be blessed with the privilege of hosting our icons.
