American Patchwork Quartet brings its unique sound to Outpost Performance Space

Outpost Performance Space will introduce Albuquerque audiences to the Grammy-nominated, post-genre folk group American Patchwork Quartet on Friday, May 9.

Led by multi-instrumentalist Clay Ross, who previously won two Grammy Awards for his Gullah- and jazz-influenced band Ranky Tanky, American Patchwork Quartet represents a similar melding of American roots music and transcultural musical motifs.

“We want to be an example of the beauty that is American diversity,” Ross said. “Diversity is the thing that makes us great.”

The quartet’s repertoire consists mostly of classic American folk tunes, such as those recorded by the early 20th century ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, but reinterpreted with Indian vocals, West African rhythms and jazz syncopation. So, it’s American roots music for people who recognize that Americans have roots all over the world.

American Patchwork’s lead singer and violinist, Harini Raghavan, was born in Chennai, India, and trained in the classical Carnatic tradition. She has recorded and performed with Grammy-winning composers A.R. Rahman and Bill Whelan.

Ross said that Raghavan brings “a lot of subtle nuance” to her interpretations of classic Americana songs like “Shenandoah” and the Scots-Irish folk ballad “Pretty Saro.”

The band’s drummer, Rudy Royston, was born in Denver, and studied percussion styles from classical to jazz. He has performed with numerous jazz legends, including Stanley Cowell, Bill Frisell and Lonnie Smith. Their bassist, Moto Fukushima, from Kobe, Japan, is an accomplished jazz musician, too, as well as an expert in traditional Japanese shamisen music.

Ross notes that his bandmates’ unique cultural reference points allow them to add depth and dimension to deceptively simple musical phrases and lyrics.

“A song we like to play called ‘Cuckoo Bird’ is interesting, because it’s a song about nature, which is a universal theme, but the cuckoo is a symbol that is sacred in India to the god of love, Kama Deva, and in Japanese poetry it’s symbolic of unrequited love,” Ross said.

As beautiful as American Patchwork’s harmonious melding of cultural influences sounds, the process to get there is not always easy.

“Cultural differences in the way that we speak or interact or understand nuances of culture have sometimes made creating work together challenging,” Ross said. “But we’ve overcome those challenges, and we continue to be engaged with that process.”

Even differences in how his bandmates were taught to count beats have led to misunderstandings.

“Our drummer (Royston) and our vocalist (Raghavan) were trying to count a rhythm, and the rhythm was in five beats. But the way that the Indian singer usually does that type of thing, she counted in a cycle of ten instead of five. It’s really the same thing, but it’s a different way of explaining it,” he said.

American Patchwork Quartet has been performing for six years and toured all over the United States, often at country music venues where ethnically diverse bands like theirs are a rarity. Yet, Ross said they always feel appreciated and embraced by audiences wherever they go.

“We’ve played everywhere from the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, to this tiny town called Philadelphia, Mississippi,” Ross said. “We were in Philadelphia, Mississippi, playing a matinee, and people in the audience came up to us and were like, ‘Wow, this moved me to tears. This was so beautiful.’”

American Patchwork Quartet brings its unique sound to Outpost Performance Space