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With a deep, woody, resonant tone, compelling harmonic and rhythmic invention, bassist
Harish Raghavan is a first-call touring musician for a number of top-flight jazz artists including
Kurt Elling,
Taylor Eigsti,
Vijay Iyer,
Gerald Clayton, and
Charles Lloyd, to name a few. He has played on seminal recordings by
Ambrose Akinmusire,
Eric Harland,
Logan Richardson, and
Dayna Stephens, among others. Based in Brooklyn,
Raghavan is also a composer, bandleader, and educator. He co-leads a group with saxophonist
Walter Smith III that has issued several recordings.
Raghavan's leader debut,
Calls for Action, appeared in 2019.
Raghavan was born and raised just north of Chicago. His early musical studies were in Western and Eastern percussion including the Indian mridangam. He transitioned to upright bass when he was 16.
Raghavan received his BA in Music from USC, where he studied under
John Clayton and
Dave Carpenter, and later with
Robert Hurst. He moved to New York in 2006 and made his living doing side work; he came with excellent bona fides from his teachers. He made his recording debut on trumpeter
Gilbert Castellanos' Underground in 2006. In 2009 he was a semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Bass Competition. He worked steadily in clubs and as a session player on albums by guitarist
Andreas Öberg (
My Favorite Guitars),
Eigsti (
Let It Come to You), and
Erin Boheme (
What Love Is), before joining
Harland's trio for
Voyager: Live by Night, and
Akinmusire's group for his acclaimed Blue Note debut,
When the Heart Emerges Glistening, in 2010. He and
Harland both played in
Sara Leib's studio band for
Secret Love in 2012. Between 2014 and 2015, he played on seminal albums by
Akinmusire (
The Imagined Savior Is Far Easier to Paint),
Harland (Vipassana),
Walter Smith III (Still Casual), and
Logan Richardson (
Shift), among others.
Raghavan, reedist
Ben Wendel, and drummer/percussionist
Nate Wood formed ACT and self-released
Act II in 2015, while the bassist worked in the Klemens Marktl Sextet in December; the sextet also included
John Ellis,
Seamus Blake,
Aaron Goldberg, and
Joe Locke.
Raghavan and
Smith also worked on
Dayna Stephens' Criss Cross date
Reminiscent.
Raghavan amassed an intense sideman résumé. He toured extensively with a variety of players including
Mark Turner,
Aaron Parks,
Greg Osby,
Billy Childs,
Benny Green,
Fabian Almazan, and
Julian Lage in performances on the festival stages of Europe and in American clubs.
Raghavan spent most of the following year on the road with
Akinmusire touring Europe and the States. In 2017 he appeared on the trumpeter's widely acclaimed A Rift in Decorum (Live at the Village Vanguard). He worked in a trio with
Smith and
Harland for the saxophonist's Whirlwind debut Twio (2017), that also featured guests
Joshua Redman and
Christian McBride. The bassist played on
Smith's second label outing In Common the following year with
Marcus Gilmore,
Joel Ross, and
Matthew Stevens.
Raghavan formed his own quintet with alto saxophonist
Immanuel Wilkins, pianist
Micah Thomas, vibraphonist
Ross, and drummer Kweku Sumbry. The group began playing out, and he co-produced and played on
Ross' 2018 Blue Note date
KingMaker, which also featured vocals by
Gretchen Parlato. In the fall of 2019, some 13 years after moving to New York,
Raghavan issued
Calls for Action, his leader debut for Whirlwind, featuring his quintet. ~ Thom Jurek