Continuing the Kaavish fanboyism, I was told by brok3n that their OST for a play Dastoor is freely available at their official website. Find the tracks here. My favourite is Teray Dum Se Hi (mp3 link). The flute piece almost makes me want to start playing music regularly again.

Besides Coke Studio and the occasional song, I haven’t heard any good music from the sub-continent in a long time. If you know of any recent good music, please share, or write to the blog e-mail id. Genre no bar — Hindustani/Carnatic/Bollywood/Indi-rock/ anything is fine by me.

*****
I attended Zakir Hussain’s Masters of Percussion at San Francisco last week. It is a series of concerts around the U.S. with Zakir Hussain (tabla), Taufiq Qureshi (percussions), Sridhar Parthasarthy (mridangam), Ganesh-Kumaresh (violin), Naveen Sharma (dholak) and the trio – Motilal Dhakis of Bengal who play the traditional processional drums.

The concert was underwhelming — but only because I had heard better, from the same artistes. A friend, whose second ever concert happened to be this, enjoyed it.

Zakir Hussain has a knack of playing to the level of the audience. He usually tests the waters in the first few minutes and settles down at the point where audience applause follows. If he played the exact thing at Sawai Gandharva, I am unsure if he would’ve gathered any applause at all. Here, he was the crowd favourite. I don’t blame the audience either. I am guessing this was the introduction to Indian classical music for many.

It was also ironic that for a concert Masters of Percussion, hardly anyone in the audience was counting beats. Taufiq Qureshi and Zakir Hussain had a lengthy jugalbandi, where they played a piece in a 15-beat rhythm. That was immense fun. There was also a 8-10 minute period where I couldn’t figure out what was going on. It was way above my level of understanding, I think.

Beyond these, there were the usual train sounds. I absolutely hate it when Zakir or Taufiq simulate the deer-running and train sounds. It is a compulsory feature when the audience is suave. In Pune, I stayed away from Zakir concerts at the Boat Clubs. The audience at SF were a perfect fit, so the tricks followed. Everyone loved it; I didn’t.

Ganesh and Kumaresh were disappointing. They are the only classical violinists I enjoy, because their music often crosses the limits of Carnatic music seamlessly. Being on the only non-percussion instrument, I expected them to play something special. That didn’t happen.

If you haven’t heard either of these artistes perform live, you might like Masters of Percussion. If you have, I’d recommend giving it a miss.

And since I attended it, it is time to redeem myself by watching this video of Shakti :