Jeff Martin - The Tablas Have Turned

(...) Jeff Martin first performed with the Tabla Ensemble (albeit in full 15-piece mode) a few years ago at a Music Conference in Toronto. The set was in tribute to Peter Gabriel, who upon hearing Martin’s tabla-inflected interpretations of Shock The Monkey and In Your Eyes told Martin he had “a good set of pipes.”

Martin’s dalliance with world music sounds has never ceased and when he talks of his current collaboration with the Ensemble, sounds like it never will.

“It’s like bringing them back to their Genesis to a certain extent,” he says, referring to the one Peter Gabriel wasn’t in. “A lot of The Tea Party’s songs stemmed from direct influences of Turkish folk music, Indian classical music or Middle Eastern music. The joy of doing it this way is that we’ve brought them back to those influences. The actual stage, with all my world instruments behind me and the tablas, it looks like the Smithsonian. It’s gonna be cool.” (...)