washerman's dog: Salil Bhatt

Saturday, January 12, 2013

A New Year, A New Raga: Pt. Vishwamohan Bhatt and Salil Bhatt

Father (Vishwamohan) and Son (Salil)

I’ve posted recordings by these gentlemen before. Indeed, they have been key collaborators on two of my favourite ‘east meets west’ type records. Vishwamohan Bhatt with Ry Cooder on 1993’s Meeting by the River and Salil Bhatt with Canadian guitarist Doug Cox on Slide to Freedom.

Father (Vishwamohan) and son (Salil) are among India’s foremost guitarists working under the wide stylistic umbrella called classical.

Both men have reconfigured the western guitar to suit their own musical visions to such a degree that their inventions are regarded as completely new instruments.

Vishwamohan has created the mohan veena and Salil the satvik veena. Both men have done as much any of their predecessors to move the guitar into the accepted mainstream of the Hindustani orchestra but it is not often that they have recorded together. Tonight’s selection from the Washerman’s Dog is their latest recorded (2012) jugalbandi.

Innovation and exploration go hand in hand. Strings of Freedom is born of this creative innovation in music by Salil Bhatt with his father Pt. Vishwamohan Bhatt. It is historic as it brings the world of music a new raga, Vishwa Kauns. Discovered by Salil Bhatt and offered as a tribute to mark 50 years of Pt. Vishwamohan Bhatt’s musical journey, Raga Vishwa Kauns is about an exquisite synthesis of ragas jog, raga jog Kauns with swar risabh through a unique technique which enhances the beauty of the raga. It envelops the sentiments of romance and celebration, ideally to be listened at night. Besides this entrancing new raga, Raga Ahir Bhairav has given the album a perfect opening as it is ideal for morning. It uses komal rishabh and komal nishad, to create a very soothing mileu for the listener to be infused with dynamism. It’s spell-binding. It’s soul-stirring. It’s for you to experience… (liner notes)

Not only did Salil sahib compose this new raga but he is also responsible for bringing the tabliya Prithivaj Mishra to the attention of the music world. He accompanies the father-son duo on both selections of this fantastic, if romantically-titled, album.

Track Listing:

01. Raga Ahir Bhairav

02. Raga Vishwa Kauns

here

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Hindustan Blues: Slide to Freedom

Mohan Veena

The Blues and India are not what you’d call natural partners. Africa and the Blues? Of course. But India? What do ragas have in common with those three big notes that form the basis of modern American music? Quite a bit actually when Doug Cox and Salil Bhatt got together with a couple of friends.

India’s improbable connection to the blues can be traced to Rajasthan and Brij Bhusan Kabra who fell in love with the sound made by the Hawaiian guitar. Employing the natural annoying persistence of a young boy he convinced his father to buy him one. “I promise to play only classical music,” he said. And in a very unnatural act for a young boy, he stayed true to his promise. Playing the guitar on his lap, and with a slide, Kabra eventually found a way to play India’s ancient music on this weirdly out of place modern instrument. So good was he that one of India’s grand musical master’s, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, took him under his wing and instructed him. While Kabra’s breakthrough album Call of the Valley with flute maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, was strictly an adventure in Hindustani music, the man who in some ways could claim the title of the Robert Johnson of India, had set something in motion.

Back in Jaipur a disciple of Pandit Ravi Shankar took up the lap guitar and started playing around with its strings. Vishwamohan Bhatt soon had modified Kabra’s guitar so much that it had become something new again: the mohan veena. In 1993 V.M. Bhatt released a stunning album with the mighty American guitarist Ry Cooder: Meeting by the River. The record won both men a Grammy Award. One of the tracks was called Ganges Delta Blues but the collaboration, exquisite as it was, was still a long way from ‘the blues’.

Enter Salil Bhatt son of Vishwamohan. His jugalbandi with Canadian bluesman Doug Cox, Slide to Freedom, completed the journey from the Ganges Delta to the Mississippi Delta. Joined by his father and tabla player Ramkumar Mishra, Bhatt and Cox give some classic country blues by the likes of “Mississippi” John Hurt (Pay Day) and ‘Blind’ Wilie Johnson (The Soul of Man) a fresh and completely convincing remake. Bhatt’s slide work on his own version of the mohan veena, the satvik veena, blends incredibly well with Cox’s guitar and mandolin work. On Arabian Night and Bhoopali Dance Cox follows Bhatt down more Indian musical galis but never gets lost. And the result is as enjoyable as when Bhatt plays the blues. The album ends with a slightly tongue-in-cheek tip of the hat to Bhatt’s great pioneering father and his famous collaboration with Cooder, in an eight and a half minute Meeting by the Liver.