Sharik Learned to Play Jazz

Sharik Hasan

What goes into the making of a world-class musician? Bangalorean-turned-New Yorker, Sharik Hasan’s far-flung journey gives us a glimpse at the answer.

Sharik was three when he moved to Bangalore from Germany. At the age of five he started learning western classical piano and by ten was also being trained in the sitar. By fifteen, he’d gotten fed up with classes and decided to give music a break, but while looking into Colleges to pursue his majors in Math and English, he made sure to pick one that had a good music conservatory.

One day, in his hostel in Ohio, Sharik heard someone playing an extraordinary piece on the piano. Eager to learn the name of the tune and find its sheet music, he was puzzled to hear that it had been an improvisation- “just messing around.” The mystery prophet would impart unto Sharik his first jazz lessons and nothing would be the same for him again. By his 3^rd year, confused, he decided to take a semester off to spend some time in Bangalore.

The year was 2005 and Sharik teamed up with Prakash on Bass and Tillu on Drums to form ‘SoundOkHorn.’ Meanwhile, a rejected Visa extended his stay in Bangalore, giving him a chance to play at all the new bars that were sprouting up in the city. The academic setback turned into an opportunity to perform in front of crowds. “Those were great times and brought me confidence,” Sharik reminisces. “I got paid too. Pretty cool!”

Though Sharik managed to go back and complete his course, the bite from the music bug was starting to take effect. Soon after, while holidaying in Paris, his mother hooked him up with an audition at Bill Evans’ Piano Academy, and he made the cut. “Paris was filled with countless intimate spaces to play at,” says Sharik. “It was a good intermediate point between India, where there was nobody and U.S., where I was nobody.”

The next step was to surround himself with a competitive community of aspiring youngsters. New York, saturated with great artists, was the ultimate goal. He managed to be accepted at the Manhattan School of Music towards an extremely rigorous program. He received training not just in theory and performance, but also got a chance at teaching undergrads. It was also here that he started tapping into his Indian roots and understanding the importance of an identity in producing something different.

A world away, on a balcony in Indira Nagar, a few hundred meters from Take-5, where he played his first gig, Sharik recalls when he and a friend broke into a Dave Brubeck concert by sneaking in through the vent. “It was a humbling experience to live in the sort of place where you could walk into a bar and rub shoulders with the giants. The more I played I could see the effect music has on people’s lives.”

Today, the Sharik Hasan New York Quartet travels the world as cultural ambassadors, entertaining every sort of crowd- “making the world a smaller place.”