Ok the Gods who look down on our fair city and have been either drinking and waking up with some sort of mid afternoon hangover or they've been gambling over which part of it will flood if they decide to send down some kind of tropical rain at 4pm. There's a term for those 4 o'clock showers I think it's convection rains but I shall confirm that in sometime.
More importantly Amjad Ali Khan and sons played at the Fort High School Grounds last evening. And the Gods were gambling over something else so unlike saturday's Lalgudi Jayaraman felicitaition that was washed out, yesterday wasn't.
The sarod is a stringed instrument which in the tradition of most other indian classical stringed instruments has a set of main strings on which the melody is played and resonating strings that add (well...) resonance to whatever is being played. It's a clean instrument but again not as sharp as the santoor and not as jarring as the sitar can occasionally be. The concert started at 7pm (after a half hour wait for some dignitary who I'm not sure turned up). He started solo with 3 compositions one in Ganesh Kalyan (haven't heard of it), the next in Sham Gowri(ditto) and the third in Durga(this one I know). Of course he started by saying how it was possible in hindustani to elaborate on a raag for as long (he's done it all night in Calcutta sometime) as one wishes but he was going to do short compositions (15 min) in each. Interestingly the time signatures for each track were (in order) 12, 14 and 16. 12 and 16 aren't hard to follow but 14 is, very politely put, a bitch. It's near impossible for the mind to think in 7s... so the man actually spends a few minutes getting the tabla and ghatam used to the taal. And consistently gives them hints on the time through out. And considering he's been there and done that for just about as long as anybody can remember his sense of both tune and time are beyond compare. Of notable mention was the rehearsal-less ghatam player who joined in. Had many issues getting used to how time works in hindustani (if time can work differently, it does...) but ultimately managed to pull it off without too many glitches.
The second half of the concert had Ustad playing with his sons. Cynical as I am about star kids, I have to admit that these two are extremely good. Technically brilliant but the maturity that shows in music as a performer ages is something that only time can lend. They did a tigalbandi on Kirwani. And shifted in the middle to a couple of other raags, I think darbari was one of them but I cannot really be too sure. This section went on for close to an hour and after many rises and falls in tempo and energy, ended with a dazzling crescendo of sheer speed.
Album Picks :
1. Recincarnation - Aman & Ayaan Ali Bangash
2. Moksha - Amjad Ali Khan
3. South meets North - Amjad Ali Khan and Lalgudi Jayaraman
4. A Box set of Amjad Ali Khan with 4CDs spanning his entire career.
sublime.
Had dinner at this pretty nice restaurant called Ghufa. Interiors are as the name suggests - grotto-esque. Except that it's on the fifth floor. Now the hotel that has this place also has this swanky deal in the ground floor called Isys. Do believe they should have switched positions but mine is not to reason. The food was good, the beer bottled the bill (for five) a little on the higher side but the place is worth a visit.
Also now am in possession of the new Sabiston including free cd and pocket companion. Adios.
