The second album of Zoe Rahman, a part Bangla, part English jazz pianist, was nominated for Britain’s best-known music award in July (via Sepia Mutiny). Listen to a clip here and also at the bottom of this page.

Zoe studied music at Oxford University and jazz performance at Berklee College of Music, Boston… [Link]

Last night, the 35-year-old pianist went along to play a gig with a Pakistani classical flute player at a London cafe, to be met by a big board outside announcing: “Mercury nominee Zoe Rahman”… Five minutes after the Mercury announcement, Rahman had HMV on the phone ordering a couple of thousand more copies…

“The only person I knew who spoke Bengali was my dad, and he never spoke it to us.” She’s been trying to learn Bengali in time for a trip to Bangladesh next week - partly a voyage of discovery into Bengali music and partly an excuse to party with 300 or so relatives. “I’m still on chapter seven of Teach Yourself Bengali at the moment. I’ve got a long way to go …” [Link]

Bookmaker William Hill gives Rahman 10:1 odds. Heckler Spray handicaps the prize and sees little hope for jazz:

Zoe Rahman: Melting Pot… Zoe Rahman plays the sort of jazz that makes you almost The winner gets a legacy of failing commercially in Americacompulsively unable to relax - why play one note on her piano, she seems to think, when she can play six freaking million. From what we’re able to tell, every single song on Melting Pot sounds exactly the same, proving that Zoe Rahman’s music lives squarely in the head, as opposed to the heart. Is it good? It’s jazz - we don’t know…

If there’s one thing we can bet our arses on, it’s that jazz goes down like a diarrhea-filled wetsuit on Mercury Music Prize night. Current Mercury Music Prize betting odds - 25/1. [Link]

The winner… gets £20,000 and a legacy of failing commercially in America… [Link]

Between Rahman, Norah Jones and half-desi jazz pianist Renee Rosnes (thanks, Siddhartha), there’s a coincidentally high concentration of part-desi jazz talent. Maybe it’s that jazz draws thoe who understand intersections. Or maybe that’s too facile a metaphor

Other nominees this year: Arctic Monkeys, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, Editors, Guillemots, Richard Hawley, Hot Chip, Muse, Lou Rhodes, Scritti Politti, Sway, Thome Yorke.

Here’s the history of desi Mercury Prize nominees:

• Zoe Rahman, Melting Pot, 2006
• M.I.A., Arular, 2005
• Susheela Raman, Salt Rain, 2001
• Nitin Sawhney, Beyond Skin, 2000
• Talvin Singh, OK, 1999 (winner)
• Black Star Liner, Bengali Bantam Youth Experience!, 1999
• Asian Dub Foundation, Rafi’s Revenge, 1998
• Cornershop, When I Was Born for the 7th Time, 1998
• Apache Indian, No Reservations, 1993

Winners are announced Sep. 5. Past winners include:

… Franz Ferdinand, PJ Harvey, Dizzee Rascal, Ms. Dynamite, Badly Drawn Boy, Gomez, Suede, M People, Portishead, Roni Size/Reprasent, Tavin Singh, Pulp and Primal Scream (who took home the inaugural prize in 1992). [Link]

Related post: The transit of Venus in Mercury