Sunny Jain's Wild Wild East
Fusion Jazz
Sunny Jain’s Wild Wild East (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings) encompasses myriad facets of Jain’s identity both as a first-generation South Asian American and as a global musician, from his own family’s immigration story to his eclectic musical upbringing. In recasting the immigrant—steeped in the courage to leave a familiar homeland for a new beginning—as the modern-day cowboy and cowgirl, Jain sources musical inspiration from the scores of Bollywood classics and Spaghetti Westerns, Punjabi folk traditions, jazz improvisation, and rollicking psychedelic styles. Sunny Jain’s Wild Wild East is rooted in the contemporary global soundscape, singing in a new voice, “I am large, I contain multitudes.”
In 2022, the band embarked on a milestone tour to Pakistan headlining Music Mela in Islamabad, the Lahore Jazz Festival and performing with master Sufi dhol drummers Nasir Sain Wajdani and Sain Tanveer. Just months prior, the group performed on the National Mall in Washington D.C. for the renowned Smithsonian Folklife Festival. 2024 started out with the band’s very own NPR Tiny Desk Concert.
