Jazz hands: Scott Kinsey, two-time Grammy-nominated music producer in Hyderabad

There’s music and there’s improv music. You could be great at playing an instrument and being a singer-songwriter, but doing that on the go is something that only a handful of musicians can really do well.

One of them is American jazz keyboard player Scott Kinsey, who has been in Hyderabad for the past three months with collaborator, bassist Naina Kundu, putting the finishing touches to their project, Forward.

With an eclectic mix of jazz, world and even a “swing-y” feel to it, their new album has been “almost finished” for a year now… it has been an on-going process since the two met in Los Angeles.

A two-time Grammy-nominated music producer as well, Scott has played keys for numerous music projects around the world — including his very successful Tribal Tech — as well as for Hollywood movies such as the Ocean’s trilogy, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Analyze That.

Describing the nature of their album, Scott says, “There is a sound to this that’s developing, and of course it’s related to jazz but there’s also a lot of improvising going on.” Naina adds, “We don’t really think in terms of genre, it’s more of just a sound that we like.”

Playing as a trio, the group also includes drummer Gino Banks — son of legendary Indian percussionist Louis Banks, who joins them for their live performances, the second of which was a couple of weeks ago in the city.

“The cool thing is that Gino has his own approach and listens to the stuff I’ve done for the last 30 years so he can approach it the right way. He gets it right off the bat,” Scott says about the drummer.

The album, which features contributions from other renowned musicians such as saxophonist Seamus Blake, Steve Tavaglione on the woodwind and drummer Cyril Atef, will also list covers of famous pop songs, including Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood and Jack Ü’s Where Are Ü Now.

“With original material people don’t necessarily get what you’re doing because it’s a song they don’t really know. But when you apply what you’re doing to a song that everybody knows, it can give people a sense of what you’re actually doing with the music. They can tell the difference,” Scott explains.

And while Scott notes Pandit Ravi Shankar and Zakir Hussain as two Indian musicians he listens to, Indian influences on his music remain limited, but with good reason: “I don’t want to just use it to ‘add a bit of spice’ to the album,” he says.