For the past year, percussionist Sameer Gupta’s nonprofit, RootStock Arts, has presented bite-sized programs of classical Indian music at Medicine For Nightmares Bookstore & Gallery.
By turning the 24th Street shop’s back room into a casual recital hall on the final Wednesday of every month, he’s added a regular helping of Hindustani fare to the Mission District’s already brimming cultural offerings.
But with the first RootStock Raga Fest on Saturday, Feb. 15, Gupta has prepared a musical feast, featuring extended performances by some of the region’s leading Indian classical artists (and beyond). It’s more than a musical event, says Gupta. “The Raga Fest builds on our Wednesday series, which represents access that classical Indian music doesn’t necessarily have in non-Indian spaces,” he says.
The program opens at 5 p.m. with Will Marsh on sitar, accompanied by tabla expert Nilan Chaudhuri playing ragas and originals. Hindustani vocalist Rujul Pathak follows at 6:45 p.m., with Narendra Joshi on harmonium and veteran tabla player Amod Dandavate.
Multi-instrumentalist and producer Siddique Ahmed, co-founder of Afghanistan’s first rock band Kabul Dreams, closes the Raga Fest at 8 p.m. on rubab, the national string instrument of Afghanistan, accompanied by Edrees Osman on tabla. The entire event is dedicated to tabla legend Zakir Hussain, the longtime San Anselmo resident who died last December at 73.
A home for adventurous music
For the Fremont-based Pathak, who moved to the East Bay in 2005 as her young career was taking off in India, the Medicine for Nightmares showcase offers a rare opportunity to perform outside of an Indian cultural context. She’s well prepared to meet new audiences.
“I try to bring areas of Indian music that are more accessible,” she says. “One of the pieces I’ll be performing is a tarana, a song that doesn’t have any Indian or Persian words. It’s based on a raga, but I’m singing syllables, and the only thing you have to translate is the music of it.”
Ragas, the vast repertoire of melodic motifs that guide most classical Indian music performances, are often selected according to the occasion and the time of day, so Pathak is thinking she’ll be choosing “evening ragas,” she says. “If it feels appropriate I’ll do a little explanation about what we’re playing, so it becomes a little more informational.”
The Raga Fest is the latest step in Medicine For Nightmares’ evolution into an invaluable outpost for adventurous music. The store’s ongoing Friday night series, Other Dimensions in Sound, has featured a steady stream of the Bay Area’s most intrepid musical explorers, including bassist Lisa Mezzacappa, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, and drummer Marshall Trammell.
The next Other Dimensions flight Feb. 21 features Red Fast Triple Luck, with saxophonists Francis Wong and David Boyce (the latter of whom curates and hosts the series), PC Munoz on percussion, and bassist Chris Trinidad, who’s helped reignite the Bay Area’s Asian-American jazz movement in recent years.
“I’d love to take credit for the music series, but David Boyce has been doing Other Dimensions In Sound for almost as long as we’ve been open,” says Josiah Luis Alderete, who took over the former Alley Cat bookstore space with Tân Khánh Cao and J.K. Fowler in 2021.
“For us, it’s important that we represent that whole history of music in San Francisco, not just the neighborhood,” he says. “David is our S.F. soundtrack through Broun Fellinis,” he notes, referring to Boyce’s work in one of the city’s signature acid jazz bands of the 1990s.
Boyce and Gupta played in the Supplicants, a spiritually charged free jazz ensemble, around the same time that Broun Fellinis were regulars at Café du Nord and Bruno’s, and it was through the saxophonist that Gupta connected with Medicine For Nightmares.
Gupta moved to New York City in 2008 and launched Brooklyn Raga Massive, a collective that brings classical Indian music into bars, nightclubs and venues while serving as a vehicle for multifarious cross-genre collaborations.
Since moving back to the East Bay in 2023, he’s been steadily expanding his footprint as a presenter, including booking regular RootStock Arts concerts at West Oakland’s Wyldflowr Arts.
“Sameer is a mover,” Alderete says. “Since the beginning, he wanted to have an all-day thing where the musicians can stretch out. The monthly is a mixtape, a bunch of different people doing different ragas.”
An expert at toggling between sowing culture at the grassroots level and reaping major productions on big stages, Gupta is also frequent collaborator with the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, where he’s presented epic performances of Terry Riley’s “In C,” tributes to Alice Coltrane, and his own large-scale works.
With a regular presence in San Francisco and Oakland, RootStock Arts is changing the equation for classical Indian musicians, bringing raga to spaces where Hindustani and Carnatic music is rarely heard.
In establishing himself as a producer and presenter with RootStock, Gupta “was thinking whether I want it to be very polished, or grassroots and independent,” he says.
Ultimately, he’s decided, “I like that indie thing right now. Having a great bookstore, where lots of revolutionary thinkers are being embraced, is a perfect setting for this art form.”
RootStock’s Raga Fest starts at 5 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 15 at Medicine for Nightmares, 3036 24th Street. RSVP here.
Howitzer of a sitar. Innocence in Harlem.