It would not be too far off the mark to say Macha Gharibian’s mixed heritage is one of the reasons for the unusual tones in her music. With an Armenian father and Italian mother, Macha who was born and brought up in France, has been making a name for herself in world music.
“My father had his own band in the 70s and I grew up listening to them, seeing them rehearse,” says the artiste who studied classical music for more than 20 years.
“I used to dream of becoming a classical pianist, until I went to New York where I discovered jazz,” she laughs, adding, “That’s how I began to search for my voice as a musician.”
For her perfomance in Bengaluru at Windmills Craftworks, Macha was accompanied by Dre Pallemaerts on the drums and David Potaux Razel on the electric guitar. Happy coincidence brought the trio together.
“When we met in 2008, we realised David’s father played the violin with my father for more than 40 years. So it was a sort of family connection,” says Macha.
They recorded her first album Mars in 2012. She was already acquainted with Dre and the trio released her second album, Trans Extended, in 2016.
Every piece on the album will give listeners an idea of Balkan music and more than a hint of modern jazz. According to Macha, the music of Armenia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey is region-specific, differentiated by the way scales are played.
Dre is Flemish and David is a Frenchman; Macha is their only reference to Armenia.
Macha feels both Dre and David are able to capture an inherent Armenian sound because they are non-natives. “They experience something and interpret it in their own way which makes our music so distinct. I could have worked with a traditional musician, but it would have just been a copy of traditional music,” she says.
Some traditional instruments used in Armenian music are the ‘zurna,’ similar to an oboe and the duduk, which is a woodwind instrument. “I love traditional music. When I hear the zurna, which has a very specific sound, I just want to dance. There is something tribalistic about it that energises you, speaks to your soul,” she says.
Macha admits their music is something like, ‘a special recipe,’ and credits Ralph Alessi, director of School for Improvisational Music in NY and other teachers there such as Jason Moran and Ravi Coltrane for helping her find her own voice.
“I saw them playing their own music — they were not imitating their role models. It is a part of the learning process to make your own signature sound. As you get older, you don’t want to sound like others, you want to sound like you,” she laughs.
“David has his own sound as a guitarist and that is what inspired me; I wanted to play with him.”
“Our music is something we create together and neither of us can take credit for it; it is a collaboration,” says David, who has been to India in the past, travelling extensively to absorb various facets of classical music and dance.
Dre visited Dharamsala in 2014 with the band Octurn. “We worked on an album called Tantric College where we recorded the puja music at a Tibetan monastery there, adding the sound of drums, keyboards and the sax to traditonal instruments used in worship.”
It is no wonder their exposure to various world cultures reflects in their work.
Macha is candid about her aspirations. “I cannot claim to master this music. I am just mixing my classical background, my experiences with jazz and my love for harmony as a pianist to make something unique,” she admits.
“That is what modern jazz is about — it brings different people together and everybody interprets it in their own way. It is this energy that makes jazz so different from other genres of music,” adds Dre.
For David, the idea of music is much simpler and complex at the same time. “There is a curious fascination to meet and learn from people of different cultures. It would be great to have more fusion music from South America and Africa.”
The trio played in Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Pune and Goa during their visit to India.