Karl Peters tells Pallavi Gupta that Stevie Wonder’s music was his first introduction to the genre
You can’t understand jazz if you don’t feel the beats of music,” said Karl Peters, who recently played at Moonshine Café and Bar, Hauz Khas Village. Karl, along with his companions — Sanjay Divecha and Andrian D’Souza, performed to a packed house. In just a few hours, the musicians left the audience spellbound.
Karl was born to a musical family. But his obsession with jazz was rather accidental. He said, “My inspiration has been Stevie Wonder, Jaco Pastorius, Stanley Clarke, Chick Corea and all the R&B artistes. My first love is Stevie Wonder. Jazz came through the backdoor when I heard Stevie Wonder. His music opened the way for me to create something of my own. And that is when I encountered jazz.”
Karl has toured the world and has worked with renowned artistes like Zakir Hussain, Hari Prasad, Sultan Khan, Sivamani and Sridhar Parthasarathy. “I believe jazz is a learning process. One learns different styles by playing with varied musicians, especially when one plays with better musicians. Different artistes make you grow over time,” he said. Dressed casually in a fitted black T-shirt, pair of denims and a white cap, it was tough to recognise one of India’s finest bassist among the crowd.
Jazz is an improvisational art form which is getting more fans in our country. “I definitely see it picking up as a lot of young people have an easy access to the greats of this genre through the Internet. In today’s music scenario, the challenge for jazz artistes is to stay in the game while pop music makes the money,” said Karl.
In love with his art since 1975, he has evolved and learned the music with time.“For the perfect set creation I restructure and work on the harmony and rhythm to create something soothing for my audience. I play the sets and see how much the audience will relate to it.”At present, Karl is working on his solo album being produced by Bunny Brunel. Once it’s out, he will start with another round of tours.