Thursday, March 11, 2010

Zakir Hussain's Masters of Percussion - Pure Bliss

It was a long and tiring day at work but I was motivated. It was time to experience the magic again. After full day of work, and almost one and half hours of driving, I was in for a treat. Zakir was performing at Herbst Theater in San Francsico downtown.

http://www.sfjazz.org/concerts/2010/spring/artists/hussain.php

Artist Personnel:

Zakir Hussain: Tabla
Ganesh: Violin
Kumaresh: Violin
Sabir Khan: Sarangi (he could not make it due to Visa issues unfortunately)
Sridar Parthasarathy: Mridangam
Navin Sharma: Dholak
Taufiq Qureshi: Percussion

Featuring the Motilal Dhakis of Bengal
Gokul Chandra Das: Processional drums
Ranjan De: Processional drums
Sankar Das: Processional drums

I have been fortunate enough to attend many concerts by Zakir bhai, and he always brings so much new and different to each of his shows. This show was no different. Taufiq started out with an amazing piece by calling "breathing as a form of rhythm", and what a rhythm it was! He used sound of his breath along with a tambourine and creating rhythm, it was amazing.

Zakir bhai came in next and he created magic with his hands on tabla. It was a long and beautiful piece. Taufiq and Zakir played for a bit after the solo performances.

Gokul Chandra Das, Ranjan De and Sankar Das (from Motilal Dhakis of Bengal) came to the stage with big Dhols (similar to the ones you usually see in Indian weddings, processional drums) and they played folk music, it was good. People started thinking there may be one or two more pieces and the show will be over, but show just got started after almost an hour of amazing percussion magic.

Zakir and Taufiq were accompanied by Ganesh and Kumaresh (both on Violin) and Sridar Parthasarathy (on Mridangam). They played Raag Janaranjani and then Raag Kalyani. Zakir and Taufiq were playing along. Violin is one of those instruments that soothes the whole environment, and along with tabla and Mridangam it created such a momentum that audience was in awe of talent on the stage.

The last addition was Navin Sharma on Dholak, who also gave a nice solo performance. The show was ended with a long and beautiful jugalbandi and a combination taal.

It is time to sleep and relax now, the sound of Ustad's tabla will be ringing in my ears for sometime now :)

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