Jazz was a strange, foreign musical genre in Nepal before Cadenza came along nearly 30 years ago. But this pioneering Nepali jazz-fusion band did not build its following overnight.
Navin Chhetri, drummer and lead singer of Cadenza began jamming with bandmates every Saturday when the Jazz Upstairs Bar opened in Thamel in 1998.
“Cadenza was a hungry band, and we were always looking for new ways to zhuzh up our style,” Chhetri told Nepali Times. “Quickly, we became fascinated with musical improvisation.”
A cadenza is an improvisatory passage in Western classical music, and improvisation has always been the core technique of the band, hence its name. “Rock music was our favourite. We loved jamming to rock bands like Thin Lizzy and the Allman Brothers,” Chhetri recalls.
In the early years, Cadenza drew inspiration from bands like Spin Doctors and Jamiroquai. The band experimented with reggae, then rock and funk, and ultimately jazz.
It was quite a gamble. They were playing live to a Nepali audience not familiar with the jazz territory. Would live improvisation work? “But the audience soon became intrigued even though they did not understand it initially,” he says. “Jazz is lively, and the energy of the music is contagious. People would give us cassettes of John Coltrane or Billie Holiday and tell us that our music reminded them of these artists. So really, it was the audience that introduced us to this unique jazz-funk sound that we are known for.”
As long lines of eager fans started filling the Jazz Upstairs bar, Cadenza expanded to doing live performances every Wednesday and Saturday. Chhetri says even after all these years, the bar feels like home.
Many listeners may notice that Cadenza’s music has a one-of-a-kind signature style due to genre fusion. Jazz instruments like saxophone, guitar, drums, and Afro-funk grooves with traditional Nepali folk rhythms and classical sounds such as damphu rhythms, Tamang selo, and bamboo flute.
MELTING POT
“Music is a language, once you understand the rules, you can write any story,” explains Chhetri. “Jazz is a melting pot for music and has always welcomed fusion, so blending Afrobeat and jazz with Nepali folk and Eastern classical didn’t feel unnatural or difficult. It felt authentic.”
As band members changed, collaborative projects expanded, and international musicians joined the fusion work. So, the name evolved into the present Cadenza Collective. Its performance at the Palmer Street Jazz Festival in Australia in 2001 was a milestone. Navin Chettri was inspired by it, and teamed up with Chhedup Bomzan of Jazz Upstairs Bar to establish Jazzmandu in 2002. It is now an annual musical festival that is celebrated with high regard (left).
“The long-lasting partnership and trust we received from Nepali Times and The Himalayan Times since the very first jazz festival, and Surya Nepal’s collaboration, made the festival possible. Jazzmandu couldn’t have grown to such a large scale without that support,” Chettri says.
Kathmandu’s live music landscape has come a long way. People were not used to paying to enter the bar, but Cadenza’s early collaborator Susan Sellers gave guests the choice to pay on the way out. Most did.
“I am very happy to see that musical literacy has made major strides in Nepal. I would even go so far as to say that the present is the golden time of music in Nepal,” Chhetri says.
Cadenza is performing its popular album ‘Back to the Roots’ at The Garden Project on Friday 24 October, and will also play in the upcoming Jazzmandu Festival.