AV 3       -     2.11.07 at Shisha Cafe, Pune

Review by Max Babi

Shisha Cafe, is a wonderful place for our weekly jazz 'fix' every Thursday night, in the verdant environs of ABC Farms complex.  It is designed and built like a huge bamboo house, one storey up amidst huge trees -and the feeling of openness amidst the thick foliage lends new colours and dimensions to a variety of jazz we keep having, the lucky denizens of Pune.

A jazz group from Pondicherry was playing there two weeks ago, and we went to the show.  The group was called AV-3 (I may have misheard that) and I simply loved the violinist, Holger Jetter , with a brilliant young pianist who was probably French.
Shisha was high on beer and Mehdi, the affable partner in the restaurant, had to shout in my ear... Holger’s violin virtuosity reminded me neither of Jean Luc Ponty who has been mimicked often nor of Stephane Grappeli who too gets imitated often.  He reminded me in parts of old jazz violinists like Joe Venutti or Papa John Creach, if you have heard them...

The difference to my ear is, these two were very 'earthy' in the sense they rarely used any electronic effect or sound distortions to make their sound dreamy. Theirs was a raw sound, and improvisations always jazzy, sometimes Bluesy too.

The jazz quotient of their playing was certainly high, because at times some tunes sounded crazily familiar but I failed to associate any name with the tune... often my teenaged daughter whispered in my ears it was 'Autumn Leaves' or 'Summertime' because she is a pianist and likes the same tunes that I do. Thank God for children, but for them we older folks would not be using he computers either!

I clearly felt that the funky piano playing got pushed to the background, during the entire show - because of the sheer magnetic pull of the violinist Jetter's style, and his 'presence'. The drummer's performance was adequate and we all returned home feeling high. Pondicherry seems to be oozing with talent.

All told a wonderful concert, we thoroughly freaked out on that.