(Ustad Alla Rakha Memorial Concert 2002. excerpts appear in Modern Drummer July 2002 edition)
With an invocation of rhythm, Zakir Hussain, Fazal and Taufiq Qureshi commemorated the memory of their father, the great Punjabi tabla master Ustad Alla Rakha, in a 16 hour concert in Bombay February 3rd, the aniversary of Alla Rakha's passing in 2000.
Alla Rakha is credited with elevating the tabla to a solo art form from its traditional accompaniment role, as well as being a guru who reached across gharanas (stylistic schools) to unite artists and influence all who knew him. He became known to the American audience during his performance with Ravi Shankar during the first Woodstock concert in 1969.
The concert commenced at 7am with the auditorium humming with a deep tanpura-like drone as a group of former disciples sang a composition of Alla Rakha through the traditional structure of exposition, theme and variation to climactic flourish. Taiko soloist Leonard Eto enters creating a heart-gripping ceremonial aura. Hariprasad Chaurasia and disciples sound an echoing morning raga like a chorus of doves while Bhavani Shankar stirs echoes in the auditorium on the pakhawaj, the predecessor of the tabla which was particularly influential in the definition of Punjab gharana to which Alla Rakha belonged.
Zakir Hussain and brother Fazal Qureshi take the stage and start trading off phrases of an exposition to a langorous whale-song sarangi accompaniment of Ustad Sultan Khan. The brothers dialogue over variations of kayadas with sharp syncopated chati strikes. The phrases seem to mull contemplatively on the prayer-like phrases of the sarangi. The performance hearkens back to a similar performance on Alla Rakha's 75th birthday on January 15th, 1994 when the brothers performed together in similar fashion for their father. After extensive tradeoff of kayadas the brothers mirror each other with racing bols to a fantastic conclusion.
Subsequently the guru's students and fellow masters take the stage to pay their tributes. Suresh Talwalkar chooses sung raga for accompaniment for his tabla solo over the traditional harmonium and proceeds take the audience into unknown rhythmic territory. He continually misses the sam beat deliberately, denying gratification like some sort of tantric ritual. He toys with counterintuitive rhythms like concluding his cycles 7 beats after the sam in teental's 16 beat phrase, giving his cycles a lurching effect and keeping the audience on the edges of their seats. All the while, he grins devilishly at the audience and tosses his frazzled hair about like Dr. Jekyl in a frenzy.
Gold bedecked tabla master Anindo Chatterjee takes the stage, guiding us on a tour of Alla Rakha kayadas. At first he plays the pattern simply, then accenting certain parts as if each were a mantra which changed meanings as different words were whispered then shouted. He doubles the speed, then quadruples it, smiling with debonair poker-face calm belying the complexity of his lightening-fast renditions. We get vertigo by zooming in on different time scales of the same rhythm, seeing different layers of the same structure like magnifying parts of a fractal pattern. With the round ricochet of a bayan strike, he ceases the flow and the audience bursts into perfectly synchronized beats of applause, having been hypnotized and entraned by his tal.
Next Sabir Khan takes us back to tabla dialog with his son Arif Khan, his paternal pride lighting up as he points to his son and makes an incredulous face to the audience as the younger Khan mimics and then embellishes on his father's compositions. Sabir then does impersonations of the different tabla gharanas and starts recalling Alla Rakha kayadas as if he were recollecting the jokes of an old adored uncle. Each time, his son takes the que and traces over his father's tabla licks like a dutiful scribe. One cannot help but picture Alla Rakha sitting with his sons and disciples tutoring the oral tradition of tabla in the same fashion.
In the final concert of the night, we are started off with a ceremonious trio of Zakir on tabla, Ustad Sultan Khan on sarangi and U. Srinivas on mandolin. Fazal and Taufiq join on the kanjira and djembe respectively to accompany the qawali-like vocals of Shankar Mahadevan. Bombay based drummer Ranjeet Barrot steps onstage and the four percussionists start a duel of vocal bol chanting that borders on rap. Leonard Eto next takes centerstage again for a solo followed by percussionist Trilok Gurtu on a modern drum set. Eto and Gurtu duel playfully and all drummers present then join in for a tag-team collage of styles with Srinivas and Mahadevan providing an ecstatic melodic backbone.
With an ovation, the concert ends and the audience disperses with toes and hearts tapping. All felt that there could never be enough with such a star-studded collection of India's elite musicians. Each musician passed on to us a hint of their influence from and love for Ustad Alla Rakha whom they affectionately call Abbaji. We witnessed a miriad of ways in which Abbaji's lives on as echoes in the hearts and beats of his disciples and friends.
Though "barsi" commemorations are typically held only once, the year following the anniversary of a loved one's passing, Zakir and family plan to hold the concert for Abbaji every year on February 3rd in the years to come. Performances will likely be webcast from www.momentrecords.com in the ensuing years. Though Zakir admitted to the press that he would prefer to honor his father at home alone, playing before his picture, he acknowleges that one of the consequences of having such an influential and beloved artist for a father is that he must be honored by a concert of esteemed maestros.
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