Today we’d like to introduce you to Kamaljeet and Jas Ahluwalia.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
Kamaljeet: I grew up in the UK, and started learning the Santoor at the age of seven. The Santoor is a rare and exquisite hammered dulcimer/zither from Kashmir. My uncle, Dharambir Singh (MBE), started a music school in Leeds and rounded up all the kids in the city to come learn. My older brother was learning the Sitar so that’s what I wanted to learn. But I was too small, so they gave me a Santoor. After some time, I fell deeply in love with the instrument and its living pioneer, Pandit Shivkumar Sharma. One of his senior disciples, Harjinderpal Singh, moved to Leeds and I continued my training with him and we became very close. Later, the stars aligned and I was introduced to Pandit Shivkumar Sharma himself and he graciously accepted me as his disciple in 2001. I’m very thankful to all of my mentors and remain close and inspired by all of them to this day.
Jas: My story starts before I was born. My father was visiting the UK and met my musical Guru, Ustad Tari Khan, two years before I was born at a private concert. They immediately developed a bond stronger than brothers that remains to this day. My father, though not a musician himself, was a connoisseur of Indian classical music. Artists with great fame and accomplishment, like Mehdi Hassan, Salamat Ali Khan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Rais Khan, and countless others were always over at the house and I was exposed to some tremendous music. He had always wanted me to learn the Tabla and formally requested Ustad Tari Khan ji to become my Guru. He made me his disciple when I was nine years old.
Kamaljeet: That’s where our musical training came from, and we had decent musical careers individually before we got married. Me in the UK, Jas in the US.
Jas: Right, but our real beginning…where Absolute Focus was born…was when we got married.
Kamaljeet: Exactly, why don’t you give everyone the short version?
Jas: It’s 2007. I’m in LA, she’s in the UK. I’m running all my Ustad’s web media….email, webpage, and myspace. “Ustadji” gets a short message from Kamaljeet that says “I’m a fan and seek your blessings.” So next trip Ustad ji is in town, we’re going through his mail and we eventually get to Kamaljeet’s. I click the link and her photo is there while her Raga Sohini starts playing in the background. Ustad ji slap’s me across the back and says “Jas, what are you doing? If you want a wife, you should have a wife like this! This is your wife!” That’s one…
Kamaljeet: A few years later, my cousin was getting married. I performed a short piece at the reception and there was this family there from California. While I was on stage playing, this auntie phoned Jas’ dad and said: “we found the perfect girl for Jas!” That’s Two!
Jas: Yeah, the families got involved and we reluctantly started talking to each other on facebook messenger. The conversations started getting longer and longer and the time between messages shorter and shorter. A few weeks into this and another family friend comes and says “I’ve found the perfect girl for you!’ Turns out it was Kamaljeet….That’s Three!
Kamaljeet: Yes, three independent people who don’t know each other put it out into the universe that we should be together.
Jas: Serendipity. I flew to the UK for five days. She flew to the US for five days. We got married! And we can truly say that “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” in every aspect.
Please tell us about your art.
Jas: We are Indian Classical musicians, first and foremost.
Kamaljeet: Right. At its core, Indian Classical Music is about Rasa. We’re taught that all human emotions and feelings are inherently expressed and therefore experienced through the music.
Jas: Beyond that Indian classical music has its roots as a form of prayer and was/is a way to connect to the divine.
Kamaljeet: That can sound like heavy stuff, but it puts us in a position to tell some amazing stories through music and really connect with people. The longer form of the music really lets you go deep into these emotional spaces and that can be really fulfilling. The form is also improvised, and that improvisational training lets us easily cross into other genres of music.
Jas: Yeah, for example we’re working on two hip-hop projects. We’re also working on a project that’s blending the Santoor and Tabla with a western string quartet. We’re always doing session work for film and television. Our own album that we’re working on does a lot of genre-crossing…Indian classical, orchestral, dubstep, and so on.
Kamaljeet: So the how? That’s what we call Riyaaz. It’s a word that means practice, but not just practice. It’s practice with dedication, commitment, prayer, meditation, analysis, and thought. We do it daily. My Guruji has a quote: “Riyaaz makes the impossible, possible”
Jas: Yeah, we’re just on a quest to keep going deeper into the music. Every time we reach some sort of goal or accomplishment, musically I’m speaking. Ten more challenges immediately open up. It’s never-ending. So we’re on a journey, and we hope that listeners come along for the ride.
Do you have any advice for other artists? Any lessons you wished you learned earlier?
Jas: We are very fortunate to live in an era where we have direct access to fans. We don’t have to go through record labels and AR executives and all these different barriers. We can simply put it out there. But that’s also where the challenge comes in, getting the fans to find your work in the fray
Kamaljeet: Social Media is also a challenge. There are things you can do to get more likes or views, for example covers, but then you don’t want to be pigeonholed as just the guys that do covers. It’s a balancing act. Do some things that can get people’s attention and see if you can get them to stick around for your ‘real’ work. By the way, covers are really fun and we have a blast doing them!
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
Jas: We have a couple of upcoming shows in LA that you can attend.
Kamaljeet: We’re performing on July 20th at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena and on August 4th I’ll be accompanying the great Ustad Tari Khan who will be the grand finale at the Festival of Tabla
Jas: We also have a weekly podcast where we do in-depth, hour-long interviews. We want to capture the conversation that musicians have with each other. So it can be funny, serious, technical, nerdy, and everything in between. Everyone should tune into that on our youtube channel or any podcasting sites – apple podcast, google play and Spotify, etc. It also airs on Dash Radio on the Rukus Avenue Radio channel Sunday’s at 7pm.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.absolutefocus.co
- Phone: 951.961.6501
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/absolute_focus/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AbsoluteFocusProductions/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/absfocus
- Other: https://youtube.com/absolutefocus
Image Credit:
Bill Kennedy, Prieyya Kesh
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