The Alaya Project defines Indo

Drawing on centuries-old rhythms and ragas from South Indian classical music and grooves honed in Oakland's furnace of simmering funk, the Alaya Project is spreading the gospel of East Bay Indo-soul around the country.

"Every time we perform on the East Coast it strikes me that what we're doing is quintessentially Bay Area and Oakland," said Rohan Krishnamurthy, who combines jazz drum kit with Carnatic hand percussion, on a recent phone call with Alaya alto saxophonist Prasant Radhakrishnan.

"Prasant and I have been performing together since high school, mostly Indian classical recitals, but this trio's sound and perspective is really unique to the Bay Area, and I think this Indo-jazz concept is growing in popularity. Incredibly to me, it happened very organically, not through auditioning hundreds of people, but finding the right player to fit the puzzle," he continued.

The supremely versatile musician who completed the Alaya Project picture is Colin Hogan, one of three gigging siblings from a musical East Bay family. Moving between accordion, piano and keyboards to fill out the Alaya Project's supple sound, Hogan provides propulsive bass lines, melodic riffs and beguiling harmonies. He plays a similar role, but in a very different context, with the Hogan Brothers, a trio that holds down a long-running residency at Jupiter in Berkeley , playing the final Friday of every month.

The Alaya Project returns to the SFJAZZ Center for two shows Sunday, Nov. 10, in the intimate Joe Henderson Lab, a milestone engagement that marks its 50th performance. Expanding to a quintet, the group will be joined by special guests Cory Combs on bass and Roopa Mahadevan, a Carnatic vocalist also known for her work in jazz, R&B, soul and world-music settings.

Mahadevan and Combs, director of the Stanford Jazz Workshop, are part of a wide circle of Alaya Project collaborators, but the group's musical identity is built firmly on the foundation of the trio, an unusual combo with an appropriately left-field origin story. "I've been telling people for years that the Alaya Project is actually a Beatles cover band," Krishnamurthy said with a chuckle.

In fact, the trio's first gig grew out of an invitation to join an UnderCover Presents production celebrating the 50th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band at Berkeley's UC Theatre in 2017. As in all UnderCover Presents projects focusing on iconic albums, producer Lyz Luke recruited an eclectic cast of acts to reimagine one track each.

Rather than going the obvious route and assigning George Harrison's sitar-driven "Within You Without You" to Krishnamurthy, Luke tapped him to reimagine "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" The drummer immediately thought of his longtime friend Radhakrishnan, an altoist who'd spent years melding jazz improvisation and classical Carnatic forms.

Thinking about how to approach the carnivalesque song, he heard accordion in the mix, "and that's when I hit up Colin. I'd known him through the scene as a Bay Area heavyweight. His parents were founding members of Gamelan Sekar Jaya, and that was the first time we came together as Alaya Project."

The trio included the enthralling arrangement of "Mr. Kite" on their eponymous 2022 debut album , which they released via Bandcamp, but most of the pieces are originals staking out musical territory where Carnatic ragas flow into African-American musical idioms. As they've performed as a group and independently over the past two years, the trio's sound has continued to evolve and absorb new influences.

"New directions happen on their own," Radhakrishnan said. "In the past, it was usually through playing with people and marinating on that. We start to hear new kinds of compositions, and it's been fascinating to see where that takes us. Some of Colin's tunes have a strong tango influence."

The group's sound has also been deeply inflected by contributing to the score for the short film, Chhaya, which was written and directed by Sophiyaa Nayar, an award-winning New York-based filmmaker and theater director from New Delhi.

Working closely with the film's sound designer while underlining an emotionally wrought film about a sexual assault survivor retraumatized by a visit to her ob/gyn "opened my eyes and ears to new sonic possibilities," Krishnamurthy said. "It's a very powerful film, and it was so cool to see how our sound and original music resonated with someone else, just through hearing us online. She only heard us live for the first time when we played Joe's Pub."

They'll be bringing a different kind of intensity to the Joe Henderson Lab, where the Alaya Project celebrates a milestone gig with a hometown audience, "playing this new repertoire that's defining Indo jazz/funk," Krishnamurthy said.