Sunny Jain

Jain is also the drummer and dhol player for Junoon, the biggest rock band to emerge from South Asia. In 2011, they recorded the single "Open Your Eyes" featuring Peter Gabriel to raise awareness and funds for Pakistani flood victims. In 2010, Junoon delivered a Concert for Pakistan at the United Nations in NYC, for displaced refugees in the Swat Valley. The band closed out 2007 with a milestone performance at the Nobel Peace Prize concert in Oslo, Norway, playing for Nobel Laureates Al Gore and Rajendra Paucharia. Jain played dhol/percussion in the first Indian Broadway show, Bombay Dreams (2004) and made his Hollywood debut playing dhol in the movie The Accidental Husband, starring Uma Thurman, Colin Firth, and Isabella Rossellini.

The group's debut album was voted a top world music album of 2010 by The Boston Globe. The group's 2011 album, Bootleg Bhangra, was recorded at Brooklyn's Southpaw concert on the band's second anniversary.

Red Baraat appeared on John Schaefer's Soundcheck WNYC-FM 93.9, an NPR affiliate, in which they were picked as a top live radio performance of 2009. They also recorded the credit roll theme song for the movie The Yes Men Fix the World and performed for the 2009 Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week (NYC) for Ports 1961 runway models. Red Baraat has been featured in National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Relix, PopMatters, and Songlines.

In 2008, Jain founded the Brooklyn bhangra band Red Baraat. In 2011 Red Baraat performed over 100 club shows and festivals across the world, including Bonnaroo Music Festival, High Sierra Music Festival, and a performance at the White House and the Paralympics closing ceremony in London. The band consists of dhol, drums, percussion, sousaphone, and horns, melding North Indian rhythm of bhangra with funk, go-go, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, and jazz.

In 2007 Jain became the first artist endorser for India's largest and oldest musical manufacturer, Bina Music.

Jain has been a recipient of composition and performance grants from the Aaron Copland Music Fund, Chamber Music America, Meet the Composer, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, globalFEST and received the Arts International Award in both 2005 and 2003 to enable touring India with his jazz group, Sunny Jain Collective. In 2002, Jain was designated a jazz ambassador by the U.S. Department of State and the Kennedy Center, for which he toured West Africa. Jain is the author of two instructional drum books for Alfred Publishing: The Total Jazz Drummer and Drum Atlas: India.

Sunny Jain (born 1975) is an American dhol player, drummer, and composer. He is recognized as a lead voice in the burgeoning movement of South Asian-American jazz musicians. His seven albums have all received international acclaim for their "groundbreaking synthesis" (Coda Magazine), as he brings together the ancient sounds of his cultural heritage, jazz and a host of other sounds.