Keshav Batish: Binaries in Cycle
Woven Strands

On his debut album, drummer Keshav Batish extends his exploration of personal identity to material recorded by his quartet on August 3, 2020 at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in his Santa Cruz, California home base. Though the musical binary in this case positions Hindustani rag on one side and blues the other, Binaries in Cycle is a contemporary jazz album in the fullest sense, with all of the core stylistic elements fluidly reconciled in seven energized performances.

Due to pandemic-related circumstances, the performance space was empty when the recording happened and so the normal audience energy musicians would feed off wasn't available. That clearly didn't prove to be a factor, however, as the playing combusts with urgency and purpose. Much of that derives, naturally, from the leader's playing and to that end Batish powers the band with the kind of finesse Tony Williams brought to his own late-career acoustic outfits. The huge sound Batish generates no doubt helped inspire alto saxophonist Shay Salhov, pianist Lucas Hahn, and bassist Aron Caceres in their own rousing contributions to five Batish originals and covers of Ornette Coleman's “Police People” and Thelonious Monk's “We See.”

Batish comes by his diverse musical outlook honestly. He's currently studying composition at UC Santa Cruz but also grew up in a household steeped in Hindustani culture. He's a lifelong musical disciple of his father, Pandit Ashwin Batish, and also follows in the footsteps of his multi-instrumentalist grandfather, S.D. Batish. As a child, Keshav's father immersed himself in binary musical activities of his own in playing Beatles songs on guitar and learning the sitar. It hardly surprises that his son—conversant in sitar and tabla as well as drumset—should bring a like-minded open-mindedness to his own artistic undertaking.

Animating the pulse with furious ride cymbal patterns and snare-and-bass drum combinations, the leader provides a fiery base for his colleagues. The four operate at a high level of intensity from the outset when the dramatic title track charges from the gate with material rooted in the tradition but in no way constrained by it. Salhov, Hahn, and Caceres respond to the drummer with furious turns of their own, though room is allowed for quieter episodes to counter the frenetic ones, and a late-inning solo by Batish lays to rest any questions about his drumming prowess.

The music's rag dimension moves to the fore during “Count Me In,” whose material's based on the morning rag, and “Let Go,” which draws from the twilight rag. As mentioned, however, such aspects, while they are no doubt present, are folded into the approach seamlessly so the performances register as jazz first and foremost. A particularly interesting fusion arises with “Gayatri,” which takes its title from the gayatri mantra and which infuses its serpentine jazz swing with a chant-like feel. The twelve minutes of “Wingspan” give the four an especially expansive field to explore, and they take advantage of the opportunity to craft a patient and methodical build. Salhov demonstrates great dexterity in his consistently inventive soloing, and much the same could be said of the others (hear, for instance, the extended, slow-building statement Hahn brings to the sultry meditation “Let Go”).

To his credit, Batish selected something less familiar from Ornette's catalogue, in this case “Police People,” a track from the Song X sessions. A prototypically singing Coleman melody elevates the piece and draws from the players one of the album's most hypercharged performances. At album's end, “We See” is given a relaxed, breezy reading, the four clearly enjoying their playful take on the Monk classic. That Batish saw fit to include treatments of their music shows that however strong the Hindustani influence is in his music, the Western jazz tradition is as pronounced. Combining the two bodes well for whatever musical direction Batish pursues going forward.

August 2021