Rishi, an Indian music lover, met Rico, a trumpet player while doing a radio program on improvised music. They improvised a few notes, the very first that were to become Jugal Bandi. Soon after, bass player Laurent Pernice joined them. In November 2003, two concerts followed at the Exodus in Marseille and the adventure began. They took part in the first Exodus label compilation "Les Nuits de l'Inde" and performed at the festival of the same name in 2004. Then, Sayon Bamba Camara, Guinean singer and dancer hooked up with the band. After new compositions and the summer 2004 concert tour in southeast France, Pinku, an indian tabla player, and algerian percussionist Hamid Gribi, in turn enriched the group's sound palette. Jugal Bandi came of age and has moved entire audiences from Marseille to Paris…

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Sayon Bamba Camara, Guinean singer, actress and dancer has settled down in Marseille. She loves the multiple facets of artistic expression and increased opportunities for training despite her family's resistance. Her youth was marked by admiration for Myriam Makeba, African Ballets, traditional music and cross-cultural mixes. Throughout her career she has banked on encounters inside as well as outside her native country to energize and enrich her creativity. Today, Marseille is her home and she has once again gambled on genre fusion without ever renouncing her roots and African traditions. She's worked with theatre companies and various music groups since her beginnings, while keeping the dance world in sight. Some recent performances have been with her Trio Camara, which reworks French songs in African versions (soussou, bambara) and played the first part for the Bénabar concert, Cabaret Nomade currently touring France, Algeria and West Africa, the show Opéra Dona with Miquèu Montanaro creator of "New Traditional Music" as well as the "Via Conakry" CD in collaboration with the Marseille Combo Group.
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In 1972, Rishi, this part-time Marseille inhabitant back from a trip to India took off for California and began learning to play the sarod, a sort of Indian lute, studying under the virtuoso Ali Akbar Khan. Several trips to India and many encounters with renowned musicians rounded out his classical training. In addition to a several-thousand-year-old repertory, Rishi enjoys mixing these instruments' ancestral sonority with today's colours and rhythms. That's how he wound up playing with Massilia Sound System and founding his group Nataraj XT that unites electronic and traditional Indian music. He also plays the esraj on stage, an ancient Indian violin becoming extinct in its native country…
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For Laurent Pernice, all started with piano lessons in Toulon at the age of 5. Adolescence transformed the piano into a guitar and then electric bass. He played with several regional groups, but was irresistibly attracted to solo experiments employing his proper equipment. During the punk period, he was listening to jazz, new music and tinkering with sound in his attic studio. Following a motorcycle accident that prevented the use of his left hand for almost two years, he turned to electronic music and composed his first album "Details" in 1988, a blend of acoustic and electronic sound with samples. He then moved to Paris where he met the Nox band and played percussion for three years with them, putting out two new CDs during this period. The group heavily influenced the first LP and the second experimented with new mixes: ethnic, new and groovy music. He met the German band POL and released another CD leaning toward ambient-techno, recorded with one of the group's members Marcus Schmickler in Cologne. Longing for the sunshine of his childhood incited him to settle in Marseille where he set up a home studio in 1997 and has composed three new albums exploring solo electronic possibilities. Apart from Jugal Bandi, he's working on music with jazzy accents in collaboration with writer and saxophone player Jacques Barbéri. He also co-founded the electro-world band Goldenberg & Schmuyle with DJ Big Buddha..
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Nabankur Bhattacharya, called Pinku, started playing the tabla at 7 years of age, his older brother Trinankur Bhattacharya taught him in the beginning. His brother remarked the rapid progress he made early on and quickly entrusted him to his uncle and renowned master Pandit Damarupani Bhattacharya. After studying classical Indian music theory for five years, he earned the "Sangeet Visharad" degree at 15 from Allahabad University. At 24, he obtained a grant from the Indian Culture Ministry, awarded yearly to the thirty most talented musicians, allowing them to continue studying under the best possible conditions. At that time he became a student of Pandit Anindo Chatterjee and has remained his disciple. Nabankur Bhattacharya has played on stages all over India and accompanied renowned musicians, singers and dancers such as A. Kanan, Prova Atra and Ulhas Koshalkar. He has been performing in Africa and Europe since 2000: Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium and France of course, where he now lives.
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Hamid Gribi has been starting with music in april 1993, by a training at the drums school Kung'Ka. In this course he learned cuban, asian and african drums. In 1996 he met Sekouba Camara, art director of the traditional symphonic band of Guinea. In 1999 he had a three months trip in Guinea to learn more about african drums. Back in France he performed in several bands : Dobet Gnahore, Bamboo Orchestra of Marseille, Cabaret Nomade, Ba Cissoko, Jugal Bandi, with a lot of concerts in France and all around the world. He has created an original drum set, called by hiimself : "batterie africaine" which is a mix from different origins. He's playing a lot of instruments such as Djembé, calebasse, bara, doumdoum, krine, balafon, kalimba, timbales, congas, bongos, climats, bendir, darbouka, marimba bambou, vocals and drums. Hamid has also written «Voyage(s) en Guinée » edited by Takla Makane.. www.perkam.org/
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The background ofEric Massua, called Rico, is composed of sound works (music, fiction, radio) alternating with visual arts (projections and installations). He believes there are no real boundaries between these two intimately linked worlds: each discipline leads to another and nothing makes him happier than staking out new territory. This trumpet player of Jugal Bandi's cross-cultural music and the Samenakoa street brass band, also works in video and does projections on objects, in particular related to story telling for children (Asaman, Des poissons et des hommes). He has also created playful and interactive installations like "Trombinoscopie chantante" presented at the Villette Numérique, La Friche de la Belle de Mai in Marseille and La Laiterie in Strasbourg. His imagination has been enriched through diverse encounters with musicians (Alif Tree), directors (François Cervantes), choreographers (Marco Becherini), computer programmers, sociologists and many more while remaining close to social realities. To him "Music is played on the roofs of the world and forever retold".
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