Jazz is not just Jazz

Mixed influence

On its second tour of India after 2009, the French jazz band Ozma gave its final performance in the capital, this Friday.

“The name Ozma is inspired by a project initiated by NASA with the same name. The mission of the project was to send music signals into the outer space and hope to receive them back from the aliens,” explains Edouard, the bassist of the band, when asked about the name of the band.

Originally the band started as a trio in 2001, as 3 musicians from a Jazz conservatory started jamming together with a sole aim of creating music.

Calling its genre ‘Explosive Jazz’, the band was joined by David Florsch in 2004 bringing the sound of Saxophone to their group. “Our music is jazz but not old jazz.

We have mixed various influences from all styles of music like Hip hop, Reggae and Radiohead.  This makes our band popular among people of all age groups which includes kids and youngsters,” David told Metrolife.

Music of Ozma is full of surprises as they dynamically improvise on stage. This is what the band members have gained after almost 10 years of band existence. “We are like a band of brothers playing together since a long time and it’s a pleasure playing with such guys.

We like to express our feeling via music on stage. Basically we try to tell audiences to be happy and to enjoy music. We also try to portray that Jazz is not just Jazz but a process - it is in evolution, so basically we can try a variety of things with our music,” says Edouard.

After performing all over the country, the band was really touched by the response that it generated among audiences during their concerts.

Their compositions put the audiences in an entirely different mood and the momentum of the music increased as the night moved on.

The Delhi crowd really enjoyed the feel that they gave to their Jazz which came slow and struck hard. “India is a very amazing country, its always a pleasure to be here. Its full of colours, food and different clothes - everything is so rich here. We have been to cities where people are shy but here in India, people are very cool and they talk to us with a smile,” said David, who was impressed by the audience present at their Delhi concert.

The band completed India 2012 tour with its performance in Delhi. The band has already performed at Jaipur, Baroda, Ahmedabad and various other parts of the country.