Sydney-based world fusion band CHUTNEY has debuted their highly anticipated album ‘Ajar’. The album is beautifully crafted, which is filled with a plethora of sounds such as folk, funk, reggae, disco and more. We sit down with lead member Ben Adler and we get to know the band a little bit more.
How did your band get together?
My name is Ben Adler, I’m the violinist and leader of CHUTNEY. I’ve been playing Jewish music with pianist Paul Khodor in communal contexts since late high school – over fifteen years now! For years during our early to mid 20s, Paul kept pestering me to “start a klezmer band” (klezmer being the folk music of nineteenth century Eastern European Jewry, and subsequent jazz-inflected derivatives). I was a snob, always too busy with what I saw as my burgeoning classical career, so I ignored him.
By mid 2019, I’d stopped touring with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. When another friend, Josh Druery, invited me to play some music for a Jewish festival called Limmud, I saw an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone and get Paul off my back. So CHUTNEY was born as “that klezmer trio”, playing classic Yiddish tunes, some of which we have finally recorded in our debut album, as well as our favourite jazz standards and even some film music.
The band grew to a quartet in late 2019 when we added bassist, Muhamed Mehmedbasic. And then, in January 2020, a friend of ours, Rachel Drubetsky (now Moshel), invited us to open for her brass band, Dogma. We had two weeks to create a suitable outfit: we found an electric bassist and drummer in Oscar Gross and Matt Druery, we settled on a name and we created a brand and dance setlist almost overnight.
The audience response to that debut performance was so overwhelmingly positive, we knew we’d struck something special. We continued to gig in Marrickville (Sydney’s home of world / alternative music), and kept recording and developing our online presence through COVID, so that we sold-out our first show at Sydney’s premier world music venue, Camelot Lounge, in August 2020.
Over the years, the lineup has shifted around Paul and me: Josh Druery, our founding clarinettist, became a doctor, so we found Ben Samuels (whom I had briefly taught Aural Perception at the Con!); I met Ralph Marshall through Ilan Kidron (lead singer of the Potbelleez, who is also on our album) and he became our bassist; Yiss Mill joined as our percussionist; after some time without a kit player, we added drums back into the mix with Maurice Henler, whom we met through mutual friends; our drummer now is Cam Reid, who also plays with me in gypsy band Monsieur Camembert.
You just released an album, tell us about it.
‘Ajar’ is our debut album, years in the making. Despite the challenges of COVID – or, perhaps, because of them – the first three years of CHUTNEY’s existence were devoted to honing our live show and touring. The recordings we made were mainly of the violin/piano duo we dubbed ‘CHUTNEY unplugged’ (formed in response to lockdown regulations that prevented the full band from meeting); full band recordings were livestreams or DIY affairs on a shoestring budget.
We knew an album was well overdue, so when we finally carved out the opportunity to record, we selected CHUTNEY’s ‘greatest hits’ – a spicy mix of instrumental and vocal (featuring three guest singers who form our extended family: Ilan Kidron, Sarit Michael and Doron Chester), old and new, fresh arrangements and juicy originals.
Ajar is a degustation of folk, funk, reggae, disco, samba, jazz, swing, Dixieland, pop, classical, musical theatre, circus and film. It is a whirlwind tour through Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Italy, Austria, Germany, Israel, Egypt, Latin America and the USA – all refracted through the dual lenses of our cultural identity: contemporary Australia and timeless Jewishness.
These thirteen tracks represent a coming of age for CHUTNEY: it is the band’s bar mitzvah!
How do you decide what worlds to put in your music?
One of CHUTNEY’s great strengths is the diversity of its personnel. Our members have played with megastar pop artists, toured nationally and globally with elite classical ensembles, held jazz residencies in Asia, played massive dance festivals with international DJs, performed at medieval fairs, music directed large shows, lectured in music at university and performed worship music at synagogue (most of which we continue to do!).
We naturally lean on this diversity when we create a new song. Our one guiding principle is a refusal to do anything ‘straight’: if we are arranging a traditional klezmer tune, we will imagine what modern feels might best complement the melody and just experiment as a band, with each member suggesting influences derived from their own musical background. Although we often have an intuitive sense of what will work, we happily throw all our ideas at a tune and see what sticks. Our arrangements are always provisional, and they continue to develop through our live shows too.
What’s the creative process like when making a song?
CHUTNEY tunes fall into three main categories: traditional klezmer dances that we have modernised (as above); pop classics that we have irreverently reimagined with a more traditional inflection; and originals. The creative process for each is slightly different, but unified by the spirit of ‘what if?’, followed hard on the heels by ‘why not?’
Notwithstanding our Jewish musical and cultural roots, we keep a completely open mind to any and every possibility. Feedback from rehearsals and gigs is democratised and the creative process is highly collaborative, such that even an original tune written by one of us will bear the influence of the other band members.
What’s next for you guys?
We’ve just returned from supporting the brilliant Melbourne Ska Orchestra on the south Queensland and NSW legs of their national tour. With our album out, we’re looking forward to arranging our next batch of klezmer tunes, with a view to touring a new setlist through the east coast next year.
If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be?
There are some extraordinary Israeli singers whom we have admired for years. Shiri Maimon (sometimes called Israel’s Britney Spears) ranks foremost among them, and we have already arranged two of her songs (one of which is Kama At Yafa, track 4 on Ajar). Tamir Grinberg is another exceptional singer – have a listen to this!
