Conceived in Calcutta, bred in Bolton, matured in Manchester, Arun Ghosh has taken the clarinet into brand new territory since breaking through with his striking Indo-jazz debut album Northern Namaste. Now with a new band and ideas honed from composing music for the theatre as well as material stretching back to his early career Ghosh talks to Stuart Nicholson about going to work on his new album Primal Odyssey, which is just about to be released.

For me, the thing that turns me off about jazz is when I feel it just isn’t communicating, that’s the ultimate thing – communication,” says clarinettist and composer Arun Ghosh. Few in jazz are better qualified to make the point. Catch his band on any night of the week and you’ll see what communication in jazz really means. Halfway through their first number he’s already won the audience over. Within seconds everyone is moving and swaying in time to the music while Ghosh, a charismatic figure on stage, throws himself headlong into the music, his wiry frame bending and contorting to every melodic twist and turn of his beguiling, hypnotic compositions.

Of course, it helps that his music is unique, that with Shabaka Hutchings on bass clarinet, Idris Rahman on tenor sax and Liran Donin on bass, it is one of the most exciting bands in jazz today and that Ghosh has made the clarinet – the most undervalued instrument in jazz today – suddenly fashionable. But that is only part of the story. This is a band with a mission. They have got something to say and believe passionately in the power of music to uplift the human spirit. “The ultimate thing we can do with music is to communicate with people, communicate emotions, feelings, express what is in our hearts, without using words,” says Ghosh. “Transcending language, ultimately, and trying to express those things you can’t express in words.”

This is an extract from Jazzwise Issue #156 – to read the full article click here to subscribe and receive a FREE CD...