I was very fortunate to be asked to be musical director for a great show on Oct 2. Visiting Indian singer Sandhya Sanjana was in Texas for a short visit and music promoter Jakes Srinivasan jumped on the opportunity to have her give a special performance here in Austin. His music organization WOBEON (World Beat Online) has a regular monthly showcase at the One2One Bar, the first Wednesday of each month.
I put together an ensemble of some of Austin’s tastiest and hard-hitting musicians to back up Sandhya. With Carter Arrington on guitar, Evan Arredondo on bass, and Wayne Duncan on drums and darbuka, we laid down some nice grooves for Sandhya’s voice to soar over. Jakes added great rhythms on congas and his brother Jay also sat in. After our set, Zoumounchi kept the grooves going with high energy Afro-Beat.
It was a pretty magical night, and I think Sandhya got a good taste of how we do things in Austin. I hope she comes back soon!