Hailing from Ottawa, Canada, Rohin Khemani began to first study music as a classical violinist performing in recitals and youth orchestras from the age of six through Canada's Royal Conservatory of Music. Rohin broke bows, set his violin on fire and began to play drums in his basement to the sounds of Fugazi, 60s Miles, and The Beatles. He then went to art school…twice! Rohin has had the honor of studying with Max Roach, Kenwood Dennard, Manu Katche, John Riley, Yusef Lateef, David Liebman, and tabla virtuoso Pandit Samir Chatterjee.
Sunny Jain - Dhol, MC
Rohin Khemani - Tavil, Doumbek, Percussion
Tomas Fujiwara - Drumset, Percussion
Arun Luthra - Soprano Saxophone
Mike Bomwell - Baritone Saxophone
Canandaigua, NY born Michael Bomwell has had the pleasure of performing with David Liebman, Clarence Clemons, Sandy Duncan, Charli Persip, Edison Woods, Olivia Newton-John, Ken Peplowski, and the Motor City Horns, among others. Most recently, Michael has been performing in and around New York City with singer/pianist of Broadway’s Movin’ Out, Henry Haid, as part of his band Glass Houses, blowin' those classic Billy Joel solos you all know and love.
Sonny Singh’s first musical outlet was singing and playing harmonium in gurdwaras, Sikh houses of worship, as a young child in North Carolina. He began playing the trumpet at age 9 and his since played in a variety of types of bands including rock, ska/reggae, Indian fusion, funk, and hip hop. In Tucson, AZ he co-founded and fronted the popular local ska band Turban Jones from 1997-2001, which released two albums of original material. In 2003, Sonny co-founded the acclaimed genre-bending political rock band Outernational in NYC, and sang, played trumpet, dhol, and harmonium in the group until April 2008. While in Outernational, Sonny shared the stage with notable artists such as Tom Morello, Ozomatli, Serj Tankian, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Talvin Singh, DJ Spooky, and performed on the Vans Warped Tour. The band also signed to Warner Brothers Records and recorded 14 songs produced by Tom Morello for the debut album. Sonny also has more than a decade of experience as a community organizer and popular educator and regularly facilitates workshops and trainings on organizing and social change
Sonny Singh - Trumpet, Vocals
MiWi La Lupa - Bass Trumpet
Michael Williams a.k.a. MiWi la Lupa is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music on Trombone and Bass Trumpet. He has performed and recorded with Charlie Hunter, Spoon, Antibalas, Mike Gordon Band, Mocean Worker, appeared on Letterman with Findlay Brown, Noah and the Whale, Nublu Orchestra, Kenny Wolleson, Michael Leonhart, Donny McCaslin, MMW, and the Brazilian Girls to name a few.
Dave 'Smoota' Smith currently plays in the Broadway musical Fela! with Antibalas and with the dirty gospel R&B band Rev. Vince Anderson & the Love Choir. On Halloween 2009, he joined Sharon Jones and members of the Dap-Kings in helping Phish cover the Rolling Stones album Exile on Main Street. He has also provided trombone for an episode of Treme, a new HBO series about New Orleans jazz musicians from the creators of The Wire. In February 2010, Smith played trombone and acted in a stage opera version of Melvin Van Peebles' proto-blaxploitation flick Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, directed by Van Peebles himself and featuring music from Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber. Over the past few years he has also performed and/or recorded with Spoon, Bebel Gilberto, Akron/Family, Chin Chin, El-P, Pharoahe Monch, Little Annie, The Bogmen, and many others. Smith leads the instrumental band The Perfect Man and will soon release Fetishes, the debut album of his Serge Gainsbourg meets Shuggie Otis pop act SMOOTA.
John Altieri - Sousaphone, Rap
As sousaphone and tuba player, John Altieri has performed solo, chamber, and orchestral music in Japan, Europe, Mexico, Canada, and the U.S., of note, Huis Ten-Bosch Quintet (Nagasaki, Japan), Alarm Will Sound, Tucson Brassworks, Bang On A Can Marathon and Mass Moca, and carries the honor of being the first ever tuba soloist at the Bowdoin Festival in summer 2002 since its inception in 1975. Altieri is also a coveted composer and conductor with a long list of credits.
Smoota - Trombone
Sunny Jain made his professional debut as a dholi playing in the first ever Indian Broadway show, Bombay Dreams (2004). He has since gone on to perform with Masala Bhangra fitness guru, Sarina Jain (“The Indian Jane Fonda”), jazz legend Dewey Redman with Asha Puthli, and Cucu Diamantes of the Latin Funk band, Yerba Buena. Sunny made his Hollywood debut playing dhol in the movie, Accidental Husband, starring Uma Thurman, Colin Firth and Isabella Rossellini. He closed out 2007 with a milestone performance with the famed Sufi-rock band, Junoon, at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway. Sunny also carries a long list of credits as jazz drummer and composer with performances with Kiran Ahluwalia, Joey Baron, Kenny Barron, Marc Cary, Samir Chatterjee, Kyle Eastwood, Roy Hargrove, Norah Jones, Q-Tip, and Martha Wainwright. He was designated a 2002 Jazz Ambassador by The Department of State and The Kennedy Center and subsequently received the Arts International Award in 2003 and 2005, and was commissioned in 2006 by Chamber Music America and in 2008 by Aaron Copland Recording Fund to compose and record new music. Sunny has also authored 2 instructional drum books for Alfred Publishing, including one on the application of Indian rhythms and concepts to the drumset.
Tomas Fujiwara was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts where he studied with legendary drummer/educator, Alan Dawson. He currently leads and composes for his quintet, Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up (debut album, Actionspeak, out in September 2010 on 482 Music), his duo with Taylor Ho Bynum (Stepwise, released in April 2010 on Nottwo Records) and the collaborative quartet, The Thirteenth Assembly. As a sideman he performs in ensembles led by Taylor Ho Bynum, Mary Halvorson, Matana Roberts, Amir ElSaffar, and Matt Mitchell, among others . From 2000-2005, Tomas was a cast member of both the touring (2000-2003) and New York (2003-2005) companies of the Off Broadway hit STOMP.
Arun Luthra was born in Massachusetts, U.S.A. to an Indian father and a British mother. He began his formal music training in Belgium at the age of nine, studying European classical guitar, and eventually focused on the saxophone as his primary instrument. He has shared the stage and recorded with many of the greatest jazz, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, and pop artists in the world, including Billy Harper, Kenny Garrett, Zé Renato, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Frankie Valli, Bobby Short, and Bernard Purdie. Luthra also leads his own quartet and has released two recordings as a band leader, and has studied and/or performed with such notable Indian classical music masters as Pt Trichy Sankaran, Pt Samir Chatterjee, Krishnan Lalgudi & Vijayalakshmi Lalgudi, Pt Karaikudi Subramaniam, and Steve Gorn. Luthra is also a faculty member of his alma mater, The New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music, alongside such jazz and world music greats as Reggie Workman, Joe Chambers, Junior Mance, and Bobby Sanabria.
Meet Red Baraat
Led by dholi Sunny Jain, Red Baraat is the first and only dhol ‘n’ brass band in the States, melding the infectious North Indian rhythm Bhangra with brass funk and expressing the human spirit through improvisation and a powerful live sound. Comprised of dhol (double-sided, barrel-shaped North Indian drum slung over one shoulder), drumset, percussion, sousaphone, and 5 horns, this NYC-based group plays fresh originals and Bollywood classics with an explosive stage performance and presence.
In the short time since their inception, the group has delivered blistering performances at the Montreal Jazz Festival, Chicago World Music Festival, Lincoln Center, Madison World Music Festival, Concert of Colors (Detroit), 4th Annual Droma Gypsy Festival, Pori Jazz Festival (Finland), Molde Jazz Festival (Norway), Chicago Folks & Roots Festival, The Kitchen performance art space, India Independence Day Parade, as well as a live radio broadcast on John Schaefer's Soundcheck WNYC-FM 93.9, an NPR affiliate. Red Baraat also recorded the credit roll theme song for the movie, The Yes Men Fix the World and performed for Ports 1961 at the 2009 Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week (NYC). Red Baraat has been featured in National Geographic, Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Relix and Songlines, among many others.
The group's debut CD, Chaal Baby (Sinj Records), was released on January 30, 2010.
What does baraat mean?
Baraat is Hindi for a marriage procession. In North India, it is a tradition on the day of the wedding for the groom to travel to his bride’s home on a magnificently decorated horse, surrounded by an entourage of family and friends. Led by a dholi and/or a marching band, this joyous celebration naturally induces dancing and singing and is inseparable from the energy and excitement of the musical festivities.
Sunny Jain - dhol / MC
Rohin Khemani - percussion
Tomas Fujiwara - drumset
Arun Luthra - soprano sax
Mike Bomwell - baritone sax
Sonny Singh - trumpet / vocals
MiWi La Lupa - bass trumpet
Smoota - trombone
John Altieri - sousaphone / rap
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