Sunny Jain's Wild Wild East

City Winery New York Presents Sunny Jain live in concert on January 14th at 7:30pm

Sunny Jain’s Wild Wild East (Smithsonian Folkways 2020) 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.

The career of Sunny Jain is a celebration of cultural diaspora: deep-rooted tradition that ripples outward, changing – and being changed by – the cultures that it touches. He is a composer, drummer, dhol player and thought leader. In 2022, Jain joined Planet Drum for their first show in 15 years, playing alongside drumming legends Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, and Giovanni Hidalgo.

Sunny Jain - drumset, dhol

Ben Parag - vocals

Alison Shearer - alto saxophone, flute

Shubh Saran - guitar

Almog Sharvit - bass