Stone Soup

(2001)

Jazz ensemble

violin
flute 
bass clarinet 
trumpet 
synthesizer 
bass 
2 percussion

Duration: 9'30"

Written for Bhedam 
Commissioned by the Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst, Netherlands 

Available on: 
Rickshaw Chase by Bhedam (TT559-017)

Available on Tools (KLR 011)

"A very different sort of inspiration from Carnatic music than showed itself in Alap is evident in Stone Soup, written in 2001. This is essentially a jazz piece, albeit of an unusual kind. The challenge McGowan set himself here was to construct the entire piece in septuplets, without the irregular metre seeming laboured or self-conscious. Part of the solution was to vary the internal groupings of the seven, so that the “beat” seems to change at times without breaking away from the basic unit of seven. This unusual rhythmic feel contrasts with the essentially traditional division of the music into melody (albeit a quartertone melody) and bassline. There are solos for mredangam, trumpet, keyboard and bass. “A funny story around Stone Soup”, McGowan notes: “I composed it devising my own scale for the melody in quartertones. While I had learned some Indian Carnatic theory, it was by no means a traditional raga. After playing Stone Soup for the late great Carnatic singer Jahnavi Jayaprakash, she immediately identified the raga and then started singing along, saying it was within their tradition”. It may be paradoxical that musicians strive for originally while realising there’s nothing really new under the sun. Ned McGowan’s music lets us hear a fresh and contemporary take on this eternal paradox." - Bob Gilmore