blues | ERA Toronto

By: Radina Vencheva

They’ve been friends for over nine years, with whole four years of high-school behind them after their families had introduced them to one another.

Their keen, but different interests in music was what made their friendship blossom throughout time. Dev Tejwani has always had an appreciation for real music, while Ananth Sundara was the one playing it after Dev sold him his own guitar six years ago.

Just as any other two male pals would do in their teens, Dev would always go to Ananth’s house to listen to him play. And sure he thought Ananth was good at it.

But it wasn’t until last month in November when Dev heard Ananth perform live in front of an actual audience in Toronto’s Hirut Fine Ethiopian restaurant on Woodbine.

“He just blows my mind,” Tejwani said. “This is actually the first time seeing him play in front of a live audience. When I’m in California, I just go to his house and he plays in front of me and maybe some friends, but usually I never seen him perform live until now so I can tell that he’s having a better time out here.”

Sure he thought Ananth was good at it, but he never assumed he’d become serious about playing music.

Ananth Sundara Moorthy is a 21-year-old young man who was born in India, moved with his family to Hong Kong until the age of four, but technically grew up in Toronto until the age of 13.

He learned how to play guitar and piano on his own and mostly performs in the blues and jazz genre.

“It was never actually planned for me to play the piano, but one day I was actually playing guitar for a while and I got pretty good at it,” Sundara said. “And in college there was one month that my guitar got stolen at the school’s parking lot and for a month and a half I was without a guitar and it just kind of slowed down my whole process.”

It started off with hip-hop first and it moved to sing/song writing Nirvana-kind-of-grunge music and then he moved towards blues, soul, funk, and eventually jazz when he was 19.

“Jazz if anything gave my sound a little bit more colour, it’s allowed me to expand in terms of what I want my music to sound like, but I think the music that’s always touched me-whether be soul, funk, whatever-is the blues,” Ananth Sundara said. “The blues has always, ever since I was a kid, drew me in.”

According to his friend Tejwani however, the reason why Ananth Sundara withdrew from hip-hop was because it wasn’t challenging enough.

“I think he just got sick with what hip-hop was becoming,” Tejwani said. “I think he also, it wasn’t a challenge for him and he wanted to learn how to play different instruments because it was a challenge.”

At school, he was fortunate to go through two terms of a music theory class that later give him the ability to translate the sounds he was hearing in his head to map onto the piano and whatever instrument he was playing. Ananth attended an audio and sound engineering college in the Bay Area.

“After that point, I think anytime I heard something or I didn’t know something, I would figure it out because of a combination of all my years training of learning how to play and because of this music theory class.”

His family decided to move again, this time to the Bay Area in California and that’s where Ananth found passion in music. But before that passion could grow in him, years of alienation and frustration would take the better hold of him.

“He was an angry kid,” Tejwani recalled. “He hated being in California and was missing Toronto a lot and he used to get in a lot of fights back in high school.”

For Ananth being in California was like a blessing and a curse at the same time. Having found himself in a new place and pressured to make new friends hindered him, but at the same time, it allowed him to develop a hobby, which later turned into his passion.

“Being isolated, being the new kid, all those kind of things I was dealing with, that made me feel that I can identify with writing lyrics all the time,” Sundara remembered.

Sundara came back to Toronto on his own at the end of the summer because Toronto holds a special spot in his heart.

“With Toronto, I needed to recharge. I always come here to recharge at least once a year in high school and I would come back here to get some piece of mind,” he said. “Also, just remember what influenced me to come back here. The music that I was writing needed that almost very redemptive move for me to come back.”

“It’s almost like a cleansing; it was an emotional and practical thing.”

After graduating from his studies in audio and sound engineering Ananth Sundara pursued his music full-time, performing in different bars in San Francisco and Bay Area.

“When I’m down there, I’m completely different person-I’m quiet and just always anxious all the time,” Sundara said. “And it comes out in my music too.”

In terms of his personal life there however, he feels that he doesn’t belong there no matter what he does. But for the past four months that he’s been back in Toronto, he’s met new people.

“Even when I was child growing up, people out here are always open to one another and nobody hides who they are from you. I’m just saying people are honest here,” he said. “Whereas when I’m down there (California) they’ll still somehow try to find some common ground with you just so they can see what they can get out of you. That’s the mentality down there.”

Tejwani who is an accountant for Maxim Integrated in the Silicon Valley also has his own music promoting and events company- Teambackpack.net-which he started with friends back in 2009, showcasing artists all throughout California and the Bay Area.

When he came to Toronto to visit his long-time friend Ananth Sundara and his family, he was surprised to see the progress he had made.

“I wouldn’t think he would take it that seriously and went to a recording school,” Tejwani said. “I was actually really proud that he took something and he was starting to get really good at it and stuck to his thing.”

What shocked him the most however, was how well Sundara was able to sway the crowd and get everyone to listen.

“When I see him being able to get a whole crowd to become silent it’s inspiring in a way. And that’s why I pursue music the way I do just to see peoples’ faces and reactions to music.”

The reason Sundara does that so well is because he feels the emotional mood of the audience before performing.

“I use the emotional space in the room to my advantage before a show,” Sundara said.

During a performance however, he likes to stay alert and consistent with the timing.

In terms of choosing which artists to promote, Dev Tejwani is clear and determined on who he wants.

“Anyone that’s really passionate and has a message. I think the message is important,” he said. “Something that will make you feel something inside, but anything that makes me feel certain way is what I like to hear and what I’d promote and love to help artists out with.”

Even though Tejwani doesn’t currently promote Sundara, he would definitely consider working with him in the future.

“He doesn’t look like a normal blues/jazz guy,” Tejwani admitted. “All the hardships in life is what makes his music what it is. And you can feel it in his lyrics.”

What they both see in the near future is establishing Internet network for Ananth.

“The thing is that you need to be everywhere these days,” Dev Tejwani said. “You need a really good team behind you to get up there on the Internet and have the whole world see what you’re doing.”