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Ken Zuckerman & Swapan Chaudhuri - Raga Jogiya Kalingra
Read the review of the 3 Shades of Raga South Africa Tour in Songlines Magazine. You should have been there....
Songlines – April 2010
You should have been there…
3 Shades of Raga, featuring Pandit Jasraj, Ken Zuckerman and Kala Ramnath, Durban, Cape Town & Johannesburg, February 10, 12 & 14 2010
Not only was South Africa experiencing its hottest summer for 30 years but Three Shades of Raga promised three stars of Indian music on the same bill.
It began with Ken Zuckerman, the American-Swiss sarod player who still attracts some curiosity: can a non-Indian musician, albeit a long-time pupil of the legendary Ali Akbar Khan, really pull it off? As though reading the audience’s minds, he promises to return as an Indian in his next life. They laugh and then, less than a minute into the recital, they’ve closed their eyes, any doubts melting away into the sounds of his exquisite alaap. If anything, the recent death of his master has added more poignancy to his music. They’re still on a high when Kala Ramnath comes on to mesmerize them with ultra-romantic ragas on her “singing violin”. One reviewer has said this is what Mozart might have sounded like if transported to the subcontinent. Jasraj, at 80, is still in full control of three octaves, living proof that age is just a number. He sings from his regular repertoire of Haveli Sangeet (Hindu temple music), plus a couple of joyously received Muslim devotional numbers. He engages in constant banter with his accompanists and when his harmonium player Mukund Petkar keeps turning to see someone, Jasraj makes up a piece on the sport cautioning against the habit of turning one’s head.
Judging by the audience’s response, it seems post-apartheid South Africa is a natural home for the classical music of India – there’s a special relationship as it was once home to Mahatma Gandhi. Indian settlers (here since the 1820s) have never entirely lost their link with the “homeland” and are ready for the real thing.
Jameela Siddiqi
