CHENNAI : As the seven musicians on stage finish playing a rather mellow piece of music , Ari Roland on the bass says, "This is nice, what does it mean?"

Pianist Anil Srinivasan explains , "It's a folk song about waiting for Krishna. It describes the sounds of nature, the jingle of anklets... "

Ari is part of the New York-based Eli Yamin Jazz Quartet that performed in Chennai on Wednesday in collaboration with renowned Carnatic musicians 'Chitravina ' Ravikiran and kanjeera player B S Purushotham, and classical pianist Anil Srinivasan .

Eli Yamin and Ari were in India last year, touring and performing in six cities. "We met a lot of musicians but we were blown away by Carnatic music. We had an exceptional experience in Chennai ," says Eli, composer and jazz pianist who heads the quartet. So they made a proposal to the US State Department to fund a trip for the four of them to come to India to collaborate with Indian musicians . The quartet, which also includes Todd Williams, who plays the saxophone and clarinet, and Stefan Schatz on the drums, spent five days in Kolkata performing and conducting workshops.

In Chennai, the Eli Yamin quartet played 40 minutes of pure jazz - Thelonius Monk, other standards and some of their own compositions - before the three Indian artists came on stage. The seven musicians performed three pieces - kadanakuthuhalam, adheri, and the 300-year-old folk song 'Kannan Varugindra Neram' by 18th century composer Oothukadu Venkatakavi - music that allowed for a lot of freestyle melodic improvisation as well as structured rhythmic harmony .

"The composition with the adheri raaga allows for a lot of improvisation," explains Ravikiran, who has collaborated with artists from across the world. "Carnatic music can be described as a blend of the rigour of western classical music and the freedom of jazz. It's a 50-50 combination of rigour and improvisation which is why Carnatic musicians can collaborate so well with jazz artists," he says.

The artists spent a lot of time on phone and email, exchanging notes and preparing for this collaboration. But they also believe that "there is something in the jazz DNA that links it to Carnatic music ," as Eli puts it.

American jazz performer Duke Ellington once said, 'I am the world's greatest listener' . And that's what the quartet plans to do - listen and learn. "There is so much to this tradition and we want to focus on the mutual places of connection," says Eli.

"Both jazz and Carnatic are two solid traditions with their own grammar, rules and aesthetic, but the reason why this collaboration works is because we all care about music more than anything else," explains Anil, who has been trained in both Carnatic and western classical music.

Though they're just looking at this performance as an interesting and enjoyable experiment for the moment, there is the hope that they can take this collaborative effort further, maybe even to New York's Lincoln Centre someday.

"I really think more Americans should hear this music. Carnatic music is one of the best kept secrets of south India ," says Eli.