Here is a short yet beautiful improvised phrase sung by Varijashree Venugopal over the song Naima by John Coltrane. Varijashree is an amazing, world class singer and improviser and I highly recommend listening to her music, some of which is available for free on her YouTube channel. In this example, she sings a C minor or Eb major pentatonic phrase grouped in 6 against the Ab major 7 (with Eb in the bass). Using this pentatonic over and Ab major chord is common practice but her deep rhythm and voice makes this phrase extremely compelling to me. I thought it would be interesting to look at in a little more depth, so finally transcribed it so I could work on it with my saxophone and share it here.
About: Varijashree Venugopal
Carnatic vocalist, Playback singer, and flautist
Varijashree Venugopal is a multi-faceted Carnatic singer and flautist who is equally at ease with classical, playback, Ghazals, world music set-up or a session recording. As a child prodigy she had the rare ability to identify about 40 ragas at the tender age of one and a half and about 200 ragas at the age of 4. She has received many awards including ‘Pearl of Bangalore’ by the Jaycees’, Kempegowda state award by The Bangalore City Corporation, Vidyaratan National award, etc. Varijashree has been trained in Carnatic music by her father Vidwan H S Venugopal, Vidushi Geeta, Vid Ganakalanidhi Salem Sundaresan. Varijashree has scored music for short films, TV soaps, documentaries and theatre productions. Varijashree has her own brand name ‘VARIations’ that features her original compositions. Varijashree, being a multi-genre musician, has collaborated with veteran artists such as Siva Mani, Hariharan, Lesle Lewis, Rajesh Vaidya, Praveen D Rao, Keith Peters, Suresh Peters, etc.
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