Talking and fundraising through music

Charitable initiative Mad Jam is backed by some big names from Karachi’s music industry.

KARACHI:

On Friday evening, the roads were mainly deserted with sparse traffic following the killing of a political party’s worker and son. As one drove towards the Mad (music, art, dance) school on the hot summer evening, the terror had not receded yet — it seemed like another gloomy night from the past week of violence. However, after entering the premises of Mad School the same night, an entirely different narrative of Karachi unfolded before our eyes — musicians from all nooks and crannies of the city had gathered for what they had titled a Mad Jam.

The  event which was more like a freestyle jam session offered an ample number of microphones for anyone who wanted to join in and play their instruments; they were part of the props that helped old and new artists become part of a ‘musical conversation’. Right after the first chord of the night was struck, music enthusiasts present at the venue gave a huge round of applause — the raw and fresh sound that was produced was something they hadn’t heard in a while.

From hard rock to blues, and ethnic pop to reggae — all sorts of genres were explored with an incredibly rich set of musical instruments, including an extensive percussion set-up and a kazoo. “This is all improvised and experimental and that is the beauty of it,” musician Hamza Jafri, also the owner of Mad School and organiser of the jam sessions, tells The Express Tribune. Jafri, who is also a singer and guitarist with the band CoVen adds, “This is how we make music in CoVen; we just try and say what all we have to say through instruments and resultantly, a song is made.”

The Mad Jam is a monthly charitable initiative in collaboration with Kiran School. The proceeds will go to Mad Gift of Music, a charity programme which aims at providing free music education to students in Lyari. Musicians and members of the audience paid Rs300 each for a ticket to the jam session. “They all know that this jam is arranged for a noble cause, but that is secondary,” continues Jafri. “For them, it’s more of a space to jam and take out their frustrations.”

The Mad Jam which started with Jafri, Omran Shafique (Momo), Sikander Mufti and Ali Jaffri as the prime performers, has now involved the crème de la crème of Karachi’s music fraternity, both young and old. “It’s an amazing place to jam as we get to perform with some extraordinarily talented young musicians of Karachi and vice versa,” guitar prodigy Aamir Zaki, who is the senior most musician among the rest at the Mad Jam tells The Express Tribune.

Praising the efforts put into arranging the gig, Zaki says, “The good thing is that everyone gets to do what they want to do and that’s the real charm of it.” He laughs and adds, “If someone wants to play dark chords and go on their own musical trip, there’s no one who will stop them because there’s no brand involved.”

The list of younger musicians include some of the most active members of Karachi’s live music, such as Alan Simon, Ahsan Bari, Mubashir Admani (from Coke Studio), Jasir Abro, Raheel Manzar Paul, Hamad Khan and Abdul Aziz Kazi. All of them were overwhelmed by the experience of playing with the maestros and were of the opinion that such freestyle jam sessions should take place more frequently.

“This is perhaps the closest you can get to a conversation through musical instruments” says Kazi. “Things get interesting when you have people talking in a complicated manner through their instruments”.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2013.                      

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