The Udhav Shinde Trio

In Belgium in 2004, Daniel joined with the Indian master drummer Udhav Shinde and the American opera singer Judy Rust to create an exciting fusion of music.

It all started when Judy, a professional singer living in Antwerp who has held a life long passion for traditional Indian music, heard Daniel perform a solo saxophone improvisation. They kept contact, and later she introduced him to Udhav, who was visiting from India. At their first meeting an impromptu jam session occurred, and the three decided to perform together.

“Udhav’s rhythmic vocabulary and sensitivity are quite uncanny” says Daniel. “Even though we don’t know much of the same music - I had hardly listened to any Indian music before this - we found that we had common ground to work with. I guess that goes to show how universal music is. It was very challenging and interesting to embark on these long improvisations with him, especially without the kind of harmonic background that we are used to in western music.

“The project really pushed me to approach playing in a different way - to look for rhythmic patterns and to build off of basic ideas, rather than soloing on changes, in the way that the jazz musicians usually tend to think.

“Having Judy to sing the beautiful Marathi songs really completed the picture - the tunes are so simple and direct, I think they are a perfect complement to what Udhav and I did.

“It was a wonderful project and I’d love to do it all again!”

The union, dubbed "The Udhav Shinde Trio" resulted in an album recorded live in Antwerp over two evenings.