In Common

Strip away the surface features and jazz, electronica,  Scottish traditional music and Indian classical music all share:

  • drone,
  • groove & rhythm,
  • collective and individual improvisation,
  • melodies and scales/raags,
  • vocal rhythmic patterns.
This project by Tom Bancroft started with the bodhran and the tabla and a drone,
added Indian Classical Violin and improvising jazz guitar, folk song and jazz singers,
and continues adding layers and voices from different traditions,

 in a creative evolving project that focuses on the common ground

between Scottish music, jazz, Indian music and electronica.
Sharat Chandra Srivastava (violin), Gyan Singh (tabla), Tom Bancroft (bodhran & drums), Graeme Stephen (guitar & loops), Sophie Bancroft (voice),Gina Rae (voice).


NB You can skip to different tracks in the album by using the >> button.

Press for In Common 'Love & Stillness":

“This fusion of jazz, Indian and occasional Scots traditional music… is vividly colourful music, the opening…somewhere between Indian chant and nursery rhyme...while the 9/8 pipe tune … is scarcely recognisable, subsumed into rich, Shakti-like guitar and violin deliberations over bodhran flurries…. a highlight is Flower Child, with its guitar and violin prelude shifting into Bancroft-beaty mode and powerful guitar work from Stephen.” 
**** The Scotsman - Jim Gilchrist
“Fascinating cross-cultural project…is a very appealing listen – full of action and yet beautifully calm and reflective.....Master musicians...This is a CD to really listen to all the way through – the whole collection is a journey into somewhere else.Love & Stillness is well-titled. For all the speed and energy of the musicians, the whole thing has a beautifully restrained quality which presents us with a delightful opportunity to breathe in, feel the world in harmony and enjoy the moment.” London Jazz News
"Its a rich mix with violin, tabla, guitar, voice and bodhran....It's also a trance piece, very yoga, 
something for the whirling dervish in you. At times it trips out, spaces out and expands all the way into the depths of the universe. Flavours of psychedelic soul and funk are sprinkled in."  Vanguard Online

"Bancroft …. has created something extraordinary here….a truly intriguing
seventy minutes of mellifluous music."  All About Jazz

“exquisite harmonies - tabla and bodhran take over with chanting in the background creating a feeling of
mysticism and meditation….full of interest and innovation.....very interesting and enjoyable…...wonderful.”
Sandy Brown Jazz

“Sometimes they smoulder….but at their most animated ...the group reach out across radically different traditions.
Echoes of Miles Davis and strands of Celtic folk are interwoven with Srivastava’s violin
and Singh’s tabla …and scat flavoured vocals add subtle shadings.” Sunday Times

 

“Bancroft makes joining the dots between diverse musical aspects seem effortless… he draws from the Indian classical tradition …discovers 
overlaps with his own Scottish folk heritage, jazz and contemporary electronica without falling into the trap of treating it as a fusion of parts… if you can imagine the Roches and Stereolab getting together to sing Sun Ra vocal mantras you’re on the right track.” **** JazzWise