Arun Luthra

Arun Luthra
Arun Luthra performing at the Kyoto Blue Note in 2011.
Background information
Genres Jazz, Post-bop, Indo jazz, World Music
Occupation(s) Saxophonist, Konnakol Artist, Composer, Arranger, Bandleader
Instruments Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Konnakol
Years active 1990 to present
Website www.SweetSoulSound.com

Arun Luthra is a jazz musician (saxophonist, konnakol artist, composer and arranger) based in New York City.

Early life

Arun Luthra was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, to an Indian father and a British mother. He began his formal music training in Belgium at age nine, studying European classical guitar. He eventually focused on the saxophone and soon began an active performing and writing career.

Career

As a performer he has shared the stage and recorded with many of the greatest jazz, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, and pop artists in the world, including Billy Harper, Eddie Henderson, Kenny Garrett, Dennis Irwin, Joe Chambers, Charli Persip, Bobby Porcelli, Portinho, Zé Renato, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Frankie Valli, Bobby Short, Lew Soloff, Bernard Purdie and Ray Vega.

The Arun Luthra Quartet has toured worldwide, including North America, Japan, the U.K. and Australia.

Luthra has also performed and/or studied with such notable Hindustani and Carnatic music masters as Pandit Trichy Sankaran, Pandit Samir Chatterjee, Krishnan Lalgudi & Vijayalakshmi Lalgudi, Pandit Karaikudi Subramaniam, Steve Gorn, Kiran Ahluwalia, Sufi singer Zila Khan, and the iconic 1970s Indian cross-over star Asha Puthli. He is one of a small group of American jazz musicians of Indian heritage who has further developed the incorporation of Indian classical music rhythms (both Hindustani and Carnatic) into jazz composition and improvisation.

As a recording artist, Luthra has been featured as a band leader, composer, arranger and sideman. In addition to his career as a performer, composer, and arranger, Luthra is also a faculty member at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music[1] in New York alongside such jazz and world music greats as Bobby Sanabria, Reggie Workman, Billy Harper, Jane Ira Bloom and Joanne Brackeen.

Luthra was named the 2017-2018 composer-in-residence at Flushing Town Hall by Exploring the Metropolis.[2] In conjunction with this he was awarded a 2018 New Works Grant by the Queens Council on the Arts to premiere the music composed during his composer residency.[3]

Luthra was interviewed by Linus Wyrsch on "The Jazz Hole" for Breakthruradio[4]

Partial discography

  • Arun Luthra & Rachel Eckroth "Louder Than Words" (SaReGaMa Records)
  • Arun Luthra's Svaha "Tangibility" (SaReGaMa Records)
  • Red Baraat "Chaal Baby" (Sinj Records)
  • David Rozenblatt "Music for Dwight Rhoden's Ballet 'Othello'" (Mishigas Music)
  • The Russ Spiegel Jazz Orchestra "Transplants" (Ruzztone Music)
  • Quimbombó "Conga Eléctrica" (Testa Dura)
  • Björkestra "Enjoy" (Koch Jazz)
  • Russ Spiegel Sextet "Chimera" (Steeplechase)
  • The New York Funk Exchange "Funkonomic Stimulus Plan" (Funk In Da Trunk Records)
  • Billy Fox "The Uncle Wiggly Suite" (CleanFeed)
  • Mosaïc Orchestra "The Journey" (Blue Lemon Records)
  • Karl Wenninger's Wake Up Call "Wake Up Call" (Bancroft Records)
  • Broadway's Greatest Gift - "Carols for a Cure" Vol. 9 (Rock-It Science Records)

References

  1. ↑ "Arun Luthra". New School. Retrieved 2018-02-19.
  2. ↑ "Announcing Our 2017-18 Con Edison Composers in Residence". Exploring the Metropolis. Retrieved 2018-02-19.
  3. ↑ "2018 Queens Arts Fund Awardees". Queens Council on the Arts. Retrieved 2018-02-19.
  4. ↑ Arun Luthra Interview by breakthruradio.com
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