Muruga Booker and the Rainforest Band
featuring Perry Robinson and Badal Roy
1:30–2:30PM, Carhartt Amphitheatre Stage
Detroit-born percussionist and original Rainforest Band collaborator Muruga Booker leads this reunion of the world-renowned Rainforest Band, whose genre-crossing approach spans jazz, rock, world music, R&B and funk. The group debuted in 1990 with the release of their Grammy-nominated album Blues From the Rainforest, a collaboration between keyboardist Merl Saunders, Booker and Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, among others. For the next 10 years, the band played with an ever-changing lineup of musicians that included various members of the Grateful Dead.
Muruga (also known as Steve Booker) came to prominence in the 1960s when he recorded with Jim and Jean on Changes (1964) and People World (1966), The Paul Winter Consort's Something in the Wind (1968) and played drums at the original Woodstock Festival with Tim Hardin. He went on to lead his own band, Muruga and the Soda Jerks, and record with Weather Report, George Clinton, Funkadelic, Bootsie Collins and the P-Funk All Stars.
The set also features special guests Perry Robinson and Badal Roy. Robinson, a master clarinetist, has worked with some of the world’s finest musicians, including Dave Brubeck, Carla Bley and Archie Shepp. Roy, the world’s foremost exponent of tabla in jazz music, has worked with artists as diverse as the P-Funk All Stars, Dave Liebman, Pharaoh Sanders, Yoko Ono and Miles Davis (appearing on several of Davis’ albums).
The band consists of Muruga (percussion), Shalti Booker (vocals and percussion) Ken Kozora (Synth Zen drum, trumpet and flute), Richard Smith (bass), Michael on Fire Colone (guitar, vocals) Badal Roy (Tabla percussion), Perry Robinson (clarinet, Acorena), Rani Nicole and Gale Marten (guest vocals) and Peter “Madcat" Ruth (harmonica).
