J.Panicker

Before I ever heard the Tamil Jazz Collective, I was already craving for them. In the aftermath of watching Crazy Rich Asians, I remember feeling so conflicted. The movie captures a Singapore I am aware of but do not recognise, and this, too, is part of the Singapore experience: living beside countless versions of this country.

So this jazzy number in the CRA soundtrack got me wondering. And maybe it’s because somewhere along the way, my CMIO-conditioned brain had unconsciously accepted that certain sounds, cultures, and forms were meant to remain in their respective boxes. I still wondered: What would jazz sound like in Tamil?

I learnt that there had been glimpses: an A. R. Rahman song here, an Ilaiyaraaja number there. I remember becoming excited by Aanaal from the Modern Love Chennai soundtrack around that time. Then, in the same fateful week, the Tamil Jazz Collective appeared on my Instagram feed, and I could have keeled over.

A Chat with TJC Founder, Harini Iyer

Founded by Harini Iyer around August 2024, the Tamil Jazz Collective is a group of musicians exploring what happens when Tamil music meets jazz improvisation. Currently on their Southeast Asia tour, with Singapore as one of its stops, I got to catch them live after fawning over their Instagram page.

Harini was generous enough to humour the fan in me, taking the time to speak about the collective’s journey. Her exploration of Tamil in jazz may have surfaced publicly in June 2024, when she began sharing Tamil translations of jazz standards on Instagram. “But when I look back,” she reflects, “it’s been a decade-long exploration of jazz, Carnatic music, Tamil music, and other global influences coming together.”

One of her earliest experiments with translation traces back to a classroom. Using Ella Fitzgerald’s Misty as an example, she was demonstrating how the same melody can take on an entirely different character in another language. “I jokingly started singing, ‘ennai paar, naan maatikitaen oru poonai, marathil polae,’” she recalls. “My students found it riveting and said I should do more of this.” It was 2021, and something quietly began there.

When asked how she might define Tamil jazz, Harini was candid about her discomfort with labels. “I struggle to define TJC because, if I’m being honest, a part of me feels uncomfortable with everything it gets defined as fusion, global, ‘world music’, genre-bending, Tamil jazz, Carnatic jazz. I’ve stopped caring.”

Is there any tension between staying true to jazz and staying true to Tamil musical traditions? “I think I am disappointing both traditions,” she shares! But disappointing who? Certainly not me, or the people I’ve shared their music with. If anything, their interpretations open the songs up, lifting them, allowing them to move.

Of course, something shifts in translation. Take their rendition of Perumal Murgan’s Nee Mattumey. The emotional core remains, but it lands differently. As she explains, “Even if the translation is more or less the same, the arc of the song and the story are intact; what changes are the approach notes, which are shaped by the genre you’re working in.” Her version, informed by jazz, introduces a different instrumentation and harmony, gently reframing the song.

“100%,” she says, when asked if Tamil changes how jazz is sung or heard. “And I’d say vice versa is also true. It’s a beautiful exploration of both.” What becomes clear, listening to her, is that this isn’t a one-way act of translation. Tamil doesn’t simply sit inside jazz. It reshapes it and is reshaped in return.

Additionally, for her, this happens as much at the level of sound as at the level of meaning. She speaks of the open “aah” of Carnatic alapanais, already fluid, leaning toward improvisation. Certain phrases happen instinctively: eduthu kol, eduthu sel.

Some songs, she says, seem to come to her in Tamil especially easily. Wave and All of Me are among her favourites, their contours translating with much grace. At one point, she shares a line, letting it sit in Tamil:

Kan moodi paar, oru azhagana unarvu idu,
un idhayam mattum paarka vendiya ulagam adu.
Iruvar orey kanavai kaanumbodu, adipadai thanimai marayum.

It’s a line that has travelled across languages, Portuguese to English to Tamil, and still holds, sounding, as she puts it, “amazing” in each.

When asked further about the range of influences in her work, Spanish, Portuguese, and beyond, she provided an unexpected analogy: Slumdog Millionaire. Each song, she says, is tied to a story, much like how every answer in the film is rooted in Jamal’s past.

There isn’t a fixed way a piece begins. For jazz standards, it often starts with translation, followed by new ideas for solos and arrangements. Original compositions take a different route, less linear, more open-ended.

The collective itself is just as fluid. It’s a rotating band, with different musicians on each tour, which means the sound is always shifting. Each line-up brings something new, reshaping the music in ways that feel as much about collaboration as composition.

As they tour across Asia, she says the response has been consistently warm, “we’ve been blessed,” she adds. At one show, someone had travelled from Malaysia just to hear them live. “We were touched.”

After the tour, the focus shifts back to making. They’re hoping to begin writing new music in Sri Lanka, where a bit of downtime might open up space for it. As for what directions that might take, she doesn’t pin it down. “Always,” she says, when I ask about new possibilities.

In true Singapore fashion, I ask her about what she’s looking forward to trying in Singapore. “I finally tried kaya toast,” she says, laughing a little. “Food and music are both forms of worship for me,” she says. “I see god in both.” She says it simply, without trying to make it mean more than it does. Having just seen TJC perform, something about that word “worship” sticks with me deeply. It’s definitely what I watched unfold on stage: TJC’s reverence for the space, the audience, and the act of performing music live.

Finally, I ask what she hopes audiences carry with them, especially those who may not understand Tamil or even jazz. “That they still feel,” she says. “Just feel.”

Highlights of TJC in Singapore: 30 April show at Highlander

Their Singapore shows didn’t quite go as planned. The collective had originally been slated to perform at the now-shuttered Dragonfly Bar that, in typical Singapore fashion, closed down overnight. Still, the show went on. The organisers, Soirée Singapore, quickly moved things to Highlander Bar, with an additional night at Mama Shelter, giving audiences another chance to catch them.

I caught them at Highlander. It was a breezy evening, two sets, with the band mingling easily with the audience in between. There were a few technical hiccups, some audio feedback here and there, but it really mattered not! By the second set, something settled. The music opened up.

Harini held the room with presence and ease. They opened with Summertime, an homage to one of her influences, Gnavya Doraisamy, and from there, the set moved between moods and textures without feeling rushed. What stood out wasn’t just the range, but the way each piece was handled with care, with play.

There were moments that lingered: their rendition of Nee Mattumey, which took on a different emotional register; their amazing Tamil take on Take Five; a Portuguese number, Vento Bravo, given a kuthu twist.

Rowthiram Pazhagu, inspired by Bharathiyar, turned fiery, the lighting catching up with the intensity of the performance. Even their unreleased originals, including one that touched on living with ADHD, were so touching.

It helped that the musicians were exceptional, Sahib Singh on guitar, among others, each bringing something distinct into the mix and so much fun play!

Looking back, I keep thinking about what Harini shared about music being a form of “worship”. Watching the Tamil Jazz Collective live, I understood what she meant. There was such care and reverence in the way they held the space, moved with one another, and invited the audience into the performance. For a few hours, it felt like being inside a kind of devotion.

I am so excited to see where they go next. And to Harini, thank you again for indulging this fan and for taking the time to chat. It was truly an unforgettable night!