Remember the trumpet-playing Big Bad Wolf from the classic Warner Bros cartoon “The Three Little Bops” (you can check it out on YouTube). He was the wannabe musician who, although he couldn’t string two notes together, kept crashing the three little pigs’ rocking jazz gigs, in a hilarious twist on the fairytale. Well, New York jazz pianist Richard Bennett certainly is no wannabe artist, having performed ragas last fortnight with well-known thumri singer Dhanashree Pandit-Rai. But he did remind us of the Big Bad Wolf. Perhaps because man and wolf both don snazzy berets on stage and both live (or die in the case of the cartoon character) to see their jiving jazz tunes bring a full house bopping to its feet.

They both have houses of bricks in their sights too. Bennett has recruited jazz-singing wife Paula Jeanine on percussion and renowned Mumbaikars, drummer Gino Banks and bassist Sheldon D’Silva, in a bid to bring the house down at Blue Frog. Called RB4, they will be playing rollicking New Orleans jazz similar to the improvised soul and rhythm and blues of famous US players James Booker and Professor Longhair. Bennett promises “wild scenes, lots of grooving and lots of fun.”

Despite his excitement about the gig, RB4 is more of a side project for Bennett. He is better known in India for Mumbai Masala, the Indian classical-fusion collaboration he performs with Pandit-Rai, whom he first met when his jazz-singing wife studied under her more than three years ago. RB4 instead gives the chance for the “irreverent” and fun-loving Bennett to enjoy a more interactive experience with audiences.

New Orleans jazz rings with an upbeat Mardi Gras flavour and is filled with opportunity for improvisation. That is all the excuse Bennett needs to get out from behind his piano and roam about banging cow bells and blowing on his melodica, a weird-looking instrument with piano keys that he plays like a trumpet or harmonica. It’s all designed to raise the temperature in the room. Because, like one of the Three Little Bops said after the formerly off-key Wolf learned how to groove after he went to hell, “The Big Bad Wolf he learned the rule. You gotta get hot to play real cool.”