<p>Harini Iyer was trained in Karnatik music but found herself drawn to jazz while living in Washington DC, USA. In 2014, she googled ‘Karnatik jazz’ on a whim and stumbled upon a musician who was blending the two genres.</p>.<p>After spending years collaborating with artiste Kriti Rao, she set up her own group, the Tamil Jazz Collective, in 2024. The project blends Karnatik music and Tamil lyrics with American jazz standards. Harini and the Collective just wrapped up their Southeast Asia tour this month, with Colombo as its final leg.</p>.Western sensibilities with a Karnatik heart.<p class="bodytext">The Collective is a rotating ensemble, with Harini (on vocals) and Sahib Singh (guitar), forming the core. Percussionists and bassists vary with every performance. In the past, they have collaborated with mridanga players, drummers, an upright bassist, and, at times, an electric bassist. The Collective has performed as a duo, trio, four-piece, and five-piece.</p>.<p class="bodytext">“There’s an element of surprise on stage,” says Harini, a graduate of Berklee College of Music, Boston. Her long-term goal is to perform with a full orchestral setup of 30 to 40 musicians. </p>.<p class="bodytext">The music aside, the Collective’s USP lies in its translations of American jazz standards into Tamil. One of their early translations, ‘Fly me to the moon’, was straightforward, but ‘It could happen to you’ proved challenging. The song’s references to spring and church bells as indicative of weddings had no direct Tamil equivalent. “I couldn’t do it on my own,” she admits, “because my Tamil vocabulary is colloquial and not poetic”. Since then, she has worked with poets and lyricists on translations.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Harini and her team have had a packed year, starting off at the BLR Hubba in January, followed by three tours. Going forward, the collective plans to workshop new material, record an unreleased single they have been performing live, and work on a conceptual EP. A jazz standards album is also in the works.</p>.Bengaluru to mark Jazz Day with multi-venue fest.<p class="bodytext">Beyond the Collective, Harini is also commonly known by her alias, Ella Subramanyam, a play on the name of jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald, one of her longtime influences. What started as an inside joke has picked up enough traction and attention from both family and fans that she has begun treating it as a creative project of its own. “It started as a project to just find joy in making music,” she says, adding that life on tour can make it easy to lose sight of that. Additionally, she also recently sang for an upcoming indie film directed by Sailesh Rathnakumar, and played the role of Draupadi in ‘Rebel Rains’, a Bharatanatyam play by Delhi-based Keelaka Dance Company, featuring Tamil jazz music.</p>
<p>Harini Iyer was trained in Karnatik music but found herself drawn to jazz while living in Washington DC, USA. In 2014, she googled ‘Karnatik jazz’ on a whim and stumbled upon a musician who was blending the two genres.</p>.<p>After spending years collaborating with artiste Kriti Rao, she set up her own group, the Tamil Jazz Collective, in 2024. The project blends Karnatik music and Tamil lyrics with American jazz standards. Harini and the Collective just wrapped up their Southeast Asia tour this month, with Colombo as its final leg.</p>.Western sensibilities with a Karnatik heart.<p class="bodytext">The Collective is a rotating ensemble, with Harini (on vocals) and Sahib Singh (guitar), forming the core. Percussionists and bassists vary with every performance. In the past, they have collaborated with mridanga players, drummers, an upright bassist, and, at times, an electric bassist. The Collective has performed as a duo, trio, four-piece, and five-piece.</p>.<p class="bodytext">“There’s an element of surprise on stage,” says Harini, a graduate of Berklee College of Music, Boston. Her long-term goal is to perform with a full orchestral setup of 30 to 40 musicians. </p>.<p class="bodytext">The music aside, the Collective’s USP lies in its translations of American jazz standards into Tamil. One of their early translations, ‘Fly me to the moon’, was straightforward, but ‘It could happen to you’ proved challenging. The song’s references to spring and church bells as indicative of weddings had no direct Tamil equivalent. “I couldn’t do it on my own,” she admits, “because my Tamil vocabulary is colloquial and not poetic”. Since then, she has worked with poets and lyricists on translations.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Harini and her team have had a packed year, starting off at the BLR Hubba in January, followed by three tours. Going forward, the collective plans to workshop new material, record an unreleased single they have been performing live, and work on a conceptual EP. A jazz standards album is also in the works.</p>.Bengaluru to mark Jazz Day with multi-venue fest.<p class="bodytext">Beyond the Collective, Harini is also commonly known by her alias, Ella Subramanyam, a play on the name of jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald, one of her longtime influences. What started as an inside joke has picked up enough traction and attention from both family and fans that she has begun treating it as a creative project of its own. “It started as a project to just find joy in making music,” she says, adding that life on tour can make it easy to lose sight of that. Additionally, she also recently sang for an upcoming indie film directed by Sailesh Rathnakumar, and played the role of Draupadi in ‘Rebel Rains’, a Bharatanatyam play by Delhi-based Keelaka Dance Company, featuring Tamil jazz music.</p>