Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasiya - Page 5

There was a fair bit of everything. Sheer melody, high energy, the pure magic of Hindustani classical raags, crackling rock anthems like Aqualung and Locomotive Breath, outstanding flute rendition, amazing displays of percussion wizardry, smart improvisation, spontaneous humour, the fireworks, the works…

For two consecutive nights, British rock band Jethro Tull and Hindustani classical flautist Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia gave the crowd at Navy Nagar's Homi Bhabha Auditorium enough value for its expensive grand, two-grand or three-grand.

For over three hours on Saturday and Sunday, it was a super-treat. It's a different matter that, had a court directive not prevented shows from taking place at the Rang Bhavan, three or four times more the number of people would have had a gala time.

Presented by Seagram's Royal Stag and promoted by Tower Of Power, the Music Without Boundaries concerts showcased the sheer brilliance of Chaurasia and the magnetic charisma of Tull vocalist-flautist Ian Anderson.

Providing great support in their respective sessions were Chaurasia's tabla accompanist Vijay Ghate, and the Tull team of guitarist Martin Barre, keyboardist Andrew Giddings, bassist Jonathan Noyce and drummer Doane Perry. To conclude both evenings, all musicians got together for some incredible fusion.

The format was the same on both days — a classical raag by Chaurasia was followed by a smashing Tull session, before the fusion set took place. Thus, Chaurasia played Yaman on Day One, and Durga the next day. In both instances, the highlights were the soothing alaap in the beginning and the charming sawaal-jawaab sessions towards the end.

Tull simply showed that it's never too old to rock 'n' roll. Barring a couple of song changes, the band stuck to a similar set. On the opening night, the crowd went into a frenzy the moment the opening bars of Living In The Past were played.

Nothing Is Easy, from the 1969 album Stand Up, was followed by the instrumental beauty Bombay Valentine, from the 1995 album Divinities. An excerpt from the 1972 masterpiece Thick As A Brick was played brilliantly, though one missed 'The poet and the painter casting shadows on the water' portion and the subsequent lead guitar solo.

Even before the applause died down, Anderson announced: "One of the greatest classical composers was Ludwig van Beethoven.

But since we find him too difficult to play, we chose another composer named J S Bach, and gave his tune a cocktail jazz treatment. You're sure to hate it." The reference was to Bouree, one of Anderson's most memorable works on flute, with Noyce chipping in with a bass cameo.

More humour followed after the track. Anderson announced that he'd play a medley consisting of cunningly-pieced parts from the title tracks of three albums — "From Songs From The Wood, we'll play Songs From The Wood. From Too Old To Rock 'n' Roll, we'll play Too Old To Rock 'n' Roll.

And from Heavy Horses, we'll play Stairway To Heaven (which he changed to Smoke On The Water the next day)." A neat medley and yeah, Tull played Heavy Horses, not Stairway To Heaven or Smoke On The Water.

Of course, one wondered why on Songs From The Wood, Anderson skipped so many lines to jump from 'Let me bring you songs from the wood' straight to 'Poppies red and roses filled with summer rain'.

After an elaborate rendition of Budapest, from the Grammy-winning 1987 album Crest Of A Knave, the two most-awaited pieces were played — Aqualung featured a sizzling guitar stretch by Barre, and Locomotive Breath saw great work by Giddings and Barre on the intro, and Anderson in the middle.

On the second evening, Budapest was dropped, surprisingly. But in came With You There To Help Me, from the 1970 album Benefit, and My God, the 1971 song from the Aqualung album. We're still thinking of how to describe the marvellous flute climax of the latter song.

If one expected the two flautists to be the stars of the fusion set, the limelight on the opening night was actually hogged by tabla player Ghate and drummer Perry. But if the first night's jam was more percussion-heavy, it was far more balanced the next day, with Barre playing brilliantly, and Chaurasia and Anderson displaying more understanding.

Any shortcomings? Not really, but for a few minutes, one needed to adapt to the sudden change between the explosive climax of Tull's set and the slow beginning of the fusion set. In the Tull portion, one wished there were guitar and drum solos too. Moreover, one wished the fusion segment was longer, with the inclusion of one specially-composed instrumental piece.

Interestingly, Tull's emphasis was mainly on the older material, completely avoiding '90s albums like Catfish Rising, Roots To Branches and J-Tull Dot Com. Some Tull-coholics would have also missed songs from This Was, Minstrel In The Gallery, War Child and The Broadsword & The Beast.

But what scintillating music, really, from both Chaurasia and Tull. The rock band didn't play its awesome number Wond'ring Aloud, but today, on Monday morning, one may well sing: "Wond'ring alaa-aa-oud, how we fee-ee-eel today, last night's brilliant concert, encha-a-antin' us, yeah."