Music wasn't a choice in the Zachariah house. It was the air.
His grandfather Walter Nathaniel was one of the first proponents of Western Classical music in India. On the other side, his grandfather A.D. Zachariah was a Rajyotsava-awarded master of the Indian Classical violin. Two great traditions met in one family — and Jason inherited both.
His first instrument was the church choir: years of singing harmony that trained the ear everything since has been built on — the instinct behind the riffs, the reharmonizations, the arrangements he's now known for teaching.
He is, by his own account, self-taught — a listener first. The teachers he names are records: Dire Straits, Deep Purple, The Beatles, Jordan Rudess, Steve Morse.
From death metal to Celtic folk to Malayalam cinema — a career that has never once sat still.
College stages, all at once: keys for death-metal outfit Extinct Reflections, prog-metal with Black Earth, funk with Caesar's Palace, glam rock with Parousia — plus Bhoomi, Mood Logic and Angel Dust. This is where the composing and arranging began.
Keys in Allegro Fudge — acoustic folk-rock with Indian colours, a full album (Maximum City) and a Hard Rock Cafe headline. Blues and funk with Blues Before Sunrise. A TEDx talk on the melody of the piano. Scores for Anmol Vellani's theatre — Exit the King and Woyzeck.
Queen and Stevie Wonder tribute concerts. Session keys for Lagori, Peepal Tree, Thermal and a Quarter, The Raghu Dixit Project and Parvaaz. The Nathaniel Production House grows into a real studio — recording, arranging, mixing and mastering.
Brass — trumpet and trombone — on Sushin Shyam's score for Aavesham (119M+ views), plus Sookshmadarshini and Mura. The Jason Zac Band's records keep coming. And a daily discipline that has now passed 3,800 original riffs.
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Piano
02
Melodica
03
Keys
04
Bass
05
Live on stage
Strip away the teaching and this is what's left — the hands. A few from the channel 121,000 people subscribe to.
It opens cold — no talking — with a full solo-piano arrangement built from stride bass, tresillo grooves and a singer's sense of melody. Then, quietly, he shows you how it was made.
The other voice. He sets the keys aside for a lyrical, aching solo trumpet — proof the brass on those film scores is him.
Thirty-four minutes spun from almost nothing — a single beat, two notes, and an imagination that refuses to repeat itself.
The Coke Studio song the whole subcontinent hummed, rebuilt at the piano — every part, every hook, by hand.
Grunge, disarmed. The anthem reborn as something tender and unmistakably his.
Seventy-two unedited minutes of two friends and a stack of carols — Jason at his most unguarded.
A one-man composition desk, made loud by a remarkable group.
Mostly instrumental, the band moves between rock, metal, Indian classical, jazz, blues and country — quiet, soulful pieces beside dramatic ones with orchestral horns, screaming guitar and odd time signatures. Jason writes, arranges and produces it all; the band brings it to life.
Their debut Back in Time won him the Rolling Stone India award for Best Keyboardist — twice. Three studio albums have followed the same restless instinct.
A tender, lush tribute to the maestro Isaignani Ilaiyaraaja, keys leading the whole arrangement through one beloved film theme after another.
Released on a major label — the band's instrumental cover of the Sid Sriram hit, Ashwini's flute singing the vocal line.
An original, played hushed and close for a Sofar Sounds living-room crowd — a pure listening-room set.
An original taken to the stage at Lagori's flood-relief concert — warm, melodic funk-fusion, the whole band at full tilt.
The album opener — the first, best way into the band's most cinematic record.
A guest-vocal showcase from the album era — soulful, slow-building, a big payoff.
When Sushin Shyam needed brass for Aavesham, he called Bangalore. The film crossed 119 million views; the horn line is Jason's.
Trumpet & trombone on Sushin Shyam's score · Fahadh Faasil. Two more Malayalam scores followed — Sookshmadarshini and Mura.
Every single day, Jason writes and plays a new riff — tagged by emotion, genre, scale, key and time feel. A decade-deep library that producers, singers and players raid for inspiration, complete with backing tracks, MIDI and chord charts.
Teaching is a Zachariah inheritance — Jason co-directs the family school with his mother, Lillian Zachariah.
At the Nathaniel School of Music he teaches piano, bass, theory, ear training, composition and production — a method built to fit the player in front of him. The same instinct powers a YouTube channel watched by 121,000 students.
Two-time winner of Best Keyboardist — a rare double in the Indian music industry, first won for the album Back in Time.
Trumpet and trombone on Aavesham (2024), plus Sookshmadarshini and Mura — Malayalam cinema's go-to session brass.
Listen →A talk and performance on the melody of the piano at TEDxMSRIT, Bangalore — one of the city's earliest TEDx events.
Watch →For sessions, brass, arrangements, scoring and production — or just to say hello. Three ways to reach me:
