Harris Jeyaraj trivia
I had wanted to post this, right after VV audio review post. But somehow it kept getting delayed. No particular reason to post it now but just thought this is an Anyway, here is some trivia about Harris:
1) He has played keyboard for Yuvan, which was the biggest surprise for me. I thought Yuvan was the youngest of the current crop of MDs in TFM and hence Harris, being a senior & the fact that they both shot to fame almost at the same time, playing for Yuvan was a surprise.
2) He continued to play keyboards for other MDs for a few months even after Minnale's release. This again is interesting bcos given the stupendous success of both the movie & its music, one would have expected him to have stopped playing for others completely. Prior commitments, may be.
3) Though he has played the keyboard for all the major MDs except the Maestro, he cherishes his experiences with Aadithyan.
4) He also feels that the difference between ARR & other MDs is that while other MDs just asked him to play the notes given by them, ARR gave him the liberty to improvise on his notes.
5) All he wanted to in his life was to play keyboards for the big name MDs. And interestingly, he says that only while playing for ARR, did he realize that he too could become a composer. And now we have a situation where he is doing better than ARR in TFM. How ironical?
6) He is younger than what I though. Not that he is as young as Yuvan, but he is just 30. Amazing, huh?!
Sources: This interview in Hindu, his official website
On a related note: I was talking to my dad about how much I love listening to Tamil film music (BTW, he does not listen to Tamil movie songs at all). Then he casually says "Dei, I know a friend of mine whose son is doing good, composing music in movies." So, me and my sister asked him who it was and after thinking hard for a while, he goes "I guess his name is something like Jeyaraj, hmm...yeah, Harris Jeyaraj". And then, he goes “Is he really famous?” We both were completely taken by surprise and we told him "Appa, he is a very famous music director who was once an assistant to A.R. Rahman and is now doing very well in the Tamil film music scene". It was so funny when he said that and me & my sister were laughing our hearts out on how he was unaware of even someone as famous as Harris Jeyaraj :)
And I am off to Mount Rushmore, in a few hours from now. More than the excitement of going to watch this great national monument, I am all excited about the road trip. This will be my longest road trip yet. My previous longest trip from Seattle to the Bay Area (to watch Thalaivar’s Chandramukhi) was around 13 hours while this one to Mount Rushmore is a good 18 hours from Seattle. (The only difference between the trips would be that while I did all the driving during my Chandramukhi trip, I have 3 other friends to share the driving responsibilities this time around). Will post lots of pictures once I come back. Folks here in the US, have a safe & wonderful Memorial Day weekend.
posted by Filbert at 12:28 PM
7 Comments:
Really it surprised me that Harris was working with Yuvan and also the news about his work as keyboard player after the success of Minnale..
Really I admired of his background in Ghajini..Really fantastic onee..
Yeah Prasanna, I too was surprised on reading about HJ playing keyboard for Yuvan, who would have been in his late teens during those days. And I liked the way you put it - ARR played for Raja, and HJ played for his son
Same here Karthik. After giving an album, as hugely successful as Minnale was, no one would have done what HJ did.
we drove about 7 hrs to see mt.rushmore. but even with 18 hrs, still worth it :)
waiting for the trip report :)
Balaji, will put up the trip report. And even before seeing your comment, I had written something in the report that answered your question. Do check it out tomorrow :)
even i thought that HJ worked for ARR and the rest. He comes across as a modest and reserved person....very much like ARR.
I though he only worked for ARR. So, the fact that he has worked for almost all MDs came as a surprise.
About his nature - yeah Kaps, that is something I too noticed. His down-to-earthness and his modesty. Inheriting qualities like these from your guru is very admirable but hope he comes out of his guru's influence as far as music is concerned :)
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