(March 16, 2024) Each year, as the spirit of Holi permeates in springtime, life is a whirlwind of activity for Indian American dhol player Sunny Jain and his band, Red Baraat, as they embark on their annual ‘Festival of Color’ tour. ‘This is how we do it. Bhangra Boom gonna make you go dhoom dhoom. We’re starting in Philadelphia next week and heading to NYC, DC, Boston, SF, San Diego, and more this March! Come dance with us,’ shared Red Baraat on its social media handles. The band has been celebrating Holi for the last 12 years, and this year, their 13-city Holi tour is already sold out.
Photo Credit: Red Baraat
Conceived by dhol player, drummer and Indo jazz composer Sunny Jain, Red Baraat is a one-of-its-kind band that has drawn worldwide acclaim for merging the energy-soaked Indian bhangra with powerful rhythms of hip-hop, jazz, and rock. “Created with no less a purposeful agenda than manifesting joy and unity in all people, Red Baraat’s spirit is worn brightly on its sweaty and hard-worked sleeve,” mentions the Brooklyn-based band’s website. Sunny Jain has trailblazed the introduction of the north-Indian instrument, dhol to the western audiences with elan.
Red Baraat
Founded in 2008, Red Baraat has performed across the globe including prestigious venues like the White House, London Olympics, Padma Lakshmi’s Blossom Ball, TED, Austin City Limits, Bonnaroo, Luxembourg Philharmonic, and Peter Gabriel’s WOMAD festivals (Australia, New Zealand, Spain, UK).
“Red Baraat comes from the Indian brass band tradition, but it’s not just trying to replicate that sound,” Sunny said in an interview. “It’s more like a South Asian-American experience with a fusion of jazz, hip-hop, and rock with a massive amount of energy,” he added.
The band has seen the crowd go berserk with excitement from the stages of festivals like the Quebec City Summer Festival, Chicago World Music Festival, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Madison World Music Festival, New Orleans Jazz Festival, SXSW Music Festival, Pori Jazz Festival (Finland), Molde Jazz Festival (Norway) and Chicago Folks & Roots Festival, GlobalFEST, and Montreal Jazz Festival amongst others.
Sunny Jain – soaking the world in the energy of Bhangra
Indian origin Sunny Jain is popular as one of the foremost South Asian-American jazz musicians, making an innovative blend of the cultural sounds of north Indian music, jazz, and various other musical influences. His albums have garnered global praise. Currently serving as the 2023-24 artist in residence at Wesleyan University, he is diligently working on his inaugural music theatrical production, ‘Love Force’.
The dhol player has authored two instructional drum books, ‘The Total Jazz Drummer’ and ‘Drum Atlas: India’, both published by Alfred Publishing. With a career spanning close to three decades, Sunny has received numerous accolades. In 2007, he became the first artist endorser for India’s oldest and largest musical manufacturer, Bina Music.
Sunny had also played dhol in the first Indian Broadway show, ‘Bombay Dreams’ in 2004, and made his Hollywood debut playing dhol in the movie The Accidental Husband, starring Uma Thurman, Colin Firth, and Isabella Rossellini.
Photo Credit: Red Baraat
In 2002, he was honoured as the Jazz Ambassador by the U.S. Department of State and the Kennedy Center, which led to extensive tours throughout West Africa.
“If we can unite people of all backgrounds and ethnicities to partake in the exuberance of life through the universal language of music, then life is much sweeter,” Sunny remarked in an interview.
Illustrious musical associations
While being actively engaged with Red Baraat, Sunny was also the drummer for the acclaimed Sufi rock band Junoon for several years, performing at the Nobel Peace Prize concert in 2007, Srinagar University in Kashmir in 2009, and the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2009. During the time, he had also recorded the single ‘Open Your Eyes’ with Peter Gabriel.
Sunny Jain is currently associated as band leader and drummer of ‘Wild Wild East’. Their first album was released in 2019 by Smithsonian Folkways. The musical group had made headlines with its outstanding performance at the renowned Smithsonian Folklife Festival at the National Mall in Washington D.C. The band recently performed at Tiny Desk Concert for NPR in 2024.
Man of milestones
Sunny has received grants for his compositions and performances from various organizations such as the Aaron Copland Music Fund, Chamber Music America, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and GlobalFEST. He was also honoured with the Arts International Award in early years of his career, which supported his jazz group, ‘Sunny Jain Collective’, during tours in India.
Red Baraat’s Festival of Colors at the Bowery Ballroom in 2019 | Photo credit: Sachyn Mital.
Much recently, in 2022, Sunny played alongside drumming legends Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, and Giovanni Hidalgo in Planet Drum’s first show in 15 years. In 2023, he served as the music producer for Mira Nair’s ‘Monsoon Wedding, The Musical’ based on the director’s widely acclaimed 2001 movie.
A few years back he had donned the hat of the musical director for the OBIE award-winning show, ‘The Jungle’, and had directed music for Lincoln Center’s 60th Anniversary celebrations.
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Merging innovation with heritage
“My parents were immigrants – I was born and raised in Rochester, N.Y. where I had a healthy dose of a little bit of everything – Bollywood classics from the 50s through the 80s, devotional songs of Jainism through both my parents, and then some Hindustani classical. I was getting all the Western music, like Casey Kasem’s Top 40, from my two older siblings,” Jain shared in an interview.
He went on to study jazz, and was inspired by greats like Elvin Jones and Max Roach but chose to create his own music by blending jazz with South Asian tunes. People loved his innovative music and Sunny started making a name for himself with packed night-club performances that eventually led to prestigious collaborations and assignments.
Later, in the ‘Sunny Jain Collective’, he explored how Indian classical music could influence jazz, working with artists like Rez Abbasi and Samita Sinha. With ‘Tongues in Trees’, a trio including Sinha and Grey Mcmurray, he combined indie-pop with Indian rhythms. Alongside Pakistani musician Ali Sethi, Jain formed Resident Alien, focusing on the theme of migration.
Giving back
Sunny Jain has always tried to merge his music with purpose. At the beginning of his career, through his project, ‘Taboo’, he had addressed social justice issues affecting the South Asian community, drawing from ancient poetry to tackle modern problems like sexual identity and domestic violence.
During his association with the band ‘Junoon’, he had used musical performances to raise awareness and funds supporting flood victims of Pakistan and Pakistani refugees in the Swat Valley.
During the pandemic the dhol player and jazz composer had released ‘Phoenix Rise’, a collaborative album featuring over 50 artists, along with a 72-page book promoting social justice.
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