All That Jazz

 Don't remember a lot from that film, but I knew there was one. It is rare that we see concerts involving people such as Louis Banks, and it was a wonderful surprise to see him and Sivamani in the same hall that we saw Manna Dey perform in a decade or so ago.. Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Bangalore. 

Anyway, it was an energetic performance by four or five of them, including these two. There was flute, guitar and keyboard along with various percussion instruments. 

The compere also was a familiar name from FM radio- Vasanti Hariprakash. A great evening, on the whole.

Carnatic Concert

Our institute's Foundation Day was yesterday, Oct. 3rd. As part of it, I had a chance to witness a brilliant concert by Ms. Deepti Navratna, who blended various lyrics with the Carnatic style of singing, making it an experience to cherish. The performance was also specially designed to sync with Gandhi Jayanti, which was just  a day earlier, and included a few of Gandhiji's favourite bhajans/poems. She sang a couple of Kuvempu compositions too.




 (image picked up from a public source)

I was also pleased to find a couple of Telugu compositions, one folk and one by Thyagaraja, if I am not mistaken.  But what took the cake was a Hebrew song tuned to a raga in the tradition of South India! Hadn't really heard a Carnatic vocal performance for a long time, and this one was special.

She is also a neuroscientist, among other things. So art and science can meet, and how! 

Hridaynath Mangeshkar in Concert

I was unbelievably lucky to have landed in a concert by Pandit Hridaynath Mangeshkar at Pune. The eighty-something young man was full of energy, and laced his singing with anecdotes of great poets in Marathi. Arati Prabhu (Khanolkar's pen-name), Suresh Bhat, Shanta Shelke and Grace (pen name used by Manik Godghate, a Nagpur-based poet) were foremost among those he mentioned, who wrote poetry which he then tried (successfuly) to put a tune to.

Kesariya Balam (Padhro mharo des) and Yara Sili Sili were Rajasthani tunes which he picked up from Udaipur while dining on the Maharaja's lawn and listening to folk singers perform. The standout songs for me were the Marathi songs Majhya saranga, raja saranga, Poortata majhya vyathechi, Kevhatari pahate, and Bhaya ithale sampat nahi,.though almost every song that he sang was worth its weight in gold. He did not sing some of his famous fishermen's songs, except one. He explained how he brought in a chorus to bring in the choir effect in one song, and in another, how he requested the HMV boss Dubey to give him a huge orchestra, rare in his recordings-we are talking gramophone records, of course.

He also narrated how Mahendra Kapoor sang a song he had composed after working hard on his Marathi. He also explained carefully the meaning of almost each song, and particularly those composed by Sant Dyaneshwar, a saint poet. That made the song sweeter when it followed.

Now, some management and leadership lessons. He declared at the beginning that farmaishes (song requests) were welcome orally; he fulfilled many, and was inspired by audience participation. He was also careful to motivate the two young ladies and two men who accompanied him in vocals or on the instruments. He gave each a playing time, but also proved his own mastery by doing some difficult songs. He also took off on the present generation for not remembering lyrics, and for going to concerts to see the songs (the performance) rather than to listen to them.

One other thing that struck me was there were no frills like most other programs, like felicitations, or speeches. Just singing, straight for 3 hours.

Truly great experience, and the audience (of which I was just one) loved it. 

Shankar Mahadevan and More

Saw Shankar Mahadevan live at Pune last night. The show was titled "From Katyar to Kajra Re." My favourites from the show are Kajra re, and the title song from Dil Chahta Hai, and all the Marathi numbers he sang, especially the ones from the film Katyar Kaaljat Ghusli (Marathi), a musical adaptation of a famous play. He starred in it as the protagonist also. One of the best films of recent times. Subodh Bhave who produced that film, was the compere, crisp and competent.

He was good in the classical numbers, and had excellent jugalbandis with the Sitar player and with the audience. There were a couple of other singers, Mahesh Kale and two female budding artists. The special effects were good, enhancing the visual experience. I did not like the bhajan/abhang (Indrayani kaathi, devachi Alandi) that he sang, maybe because Bhimsen Joshi and Kumar Gandharva have sung the same at a superior level.

All said, a great experience, though the handling of the crowd by the volunteers at the entry points to the back rows left a lot to be said about managing events. But that was forgotten once the magic began.

Met Ratnashree Tripathi, a former student who works for Jetsynthesys, a digital firm in Pune. Was meeting her after a few years, so we covered a lot of ground, including many writers from IMT Nagpur, and writing and reading in general.