Cookie dough flavored Cleverfolk

This category is folk lyrics with Jazz style interlude arrangement. Now, that’s probably a first in Indian cinema where someone dares to make such an attempt! Lots of composers have tried to set Indian film songs to a Jazz arrangement, but they never take a folk lyric and experiment!

Kaatile Kamban Kaatile from Rajakumaran (1994) set to a nice Jazz rhythm with folkish lyric. In the first interlude Raja throws the kitchen sink – female choir, with a nice synth play very typical of Jazz. The second interlude confirms any doubts by the wonderful sax and pan flute in typical Jazz style.

Thangakili Tholil Vacha Neethane Meenachi from Manam Virumbudhe Unnai (1999). As described in the section ‘Raja’s rhythm innovation stage 13’ this is a fantastic folk track that is set to the Jazz style arrangement, it becomes hard to say if this is folk or Jazz.

The track below has the beginning of the track Kaatile Kamban Kaatile followed by the second interlude. Let’s first analyze the prelude. It starts off with brilliant violins in tremolo. The synth joins at a relaxed pace. Raja cuts the violins out with a very slow jazz paced folk song! Do not miss the bass playing nicely on the left channel. The interlude has all the elements of a Jazz elements – the Western pan flute is the embellishment which plays for few brief seconds that is not typical of jazz. With that exception, (you got to go looking for it), it’s like any other jazz song. Nice use of sax and synth which is typical of Jazz music.

This is experimentation at its best. Folk meets Jazz so effectively. While Raja has used Jazz techniques in several compositions , his application to folk is limited.