When you meet smooth jazz and blues trumpet player and composer Alain Brunet off stage, he is quiet, gracious and congenial, but when he wields the instrument he is a different persona altogether. Needless to say, the trumpet’s the reason for metamorphosis.

Alain and his team were in the City last week at the Grand Ashok for a show sponsored by Black Dog. The pieces performed were highly introspective and communicative in nature. Most of Alain’s renditions were inspired by his experiences in India. Horn’s listen from Pondy, is a piece about the war of horns on Pondy streets. No two rickshaws there share the same sound. Each horn vies to be louder than the other.

Alain composed Tribute to Miles and Pierre as a tribute to his friends in Pondy, to their warmth and generosity. 

All of Alain’s pieces have been improvised. They’re mostly slow and his whistling and scathing in between the songs spiced up the atmosphere. Alain roped in two Indian musicians — one on the sarod and another on the tabla — to lend an Indian edge to the performance.

“I chose the sarod and tabla for the performance because their sounds are deep. It’s easy for us to synchronise Indian instruments to Western chords because each musician keeps to his roots and plays within their domain,” observes Alain and adds, “we respect each other’s culture and musical tradition.”

Alain played two compositions, tuned especially for the Indian audience. The soothing Lookin within was inspired by the calm and serenity of Pondicherry. Its contemplative mode essentialised the Indian way of life. The bright and sprightly music of Malay Maruta attempted to capture the Indian life — the colour, dances and music.

Jean Louis, the drummer, possessed an uncanny stage presence, abundance of charisma. “Mixing jazz with the other forms of music is like a cocktail of sorts, the proportion has to be right.

To me the music I mix and match has to sound right,” says Jean and adds, “I love the tabla and sarod because they help build rhythm.”

Alain was accompanied by Lucfeloli on guitar, Jean Louis on the drums, Manosh Baradhan on tabla and Debi Prasad on sarod.