The 20 years referred to in the title of this 2CD collection is only the length of the Bombay-born percussionist's solo career. Gurtu was already beginning to play Indian classical tabla at the age of six, eventually opening his jazz-fusion phase by gigging with Oregon and Don Cherry. This set's subtitle blurb reads 'the serial collaborator in full flight with…', then proceeds to list a highly impressive gathering of guest artists, hailing from both jazz and global music zones. There's always the danger, particularly with drumming leaders, to be subsumed and sidelined by your singers, guitarists and horn players, but Trilok always invites his collaborators into his own universe, retaining a strong sense of Indian classical tradition. Often this will be pleasingly filtered via a fusion with jazz, funk, soul, hip hop, African, Latin, Far Eastern or Western classical musics, but Gurtu usually tends to emerge unscathed and undiluted.
ndian percussionist Trilok Gurtu, the son of vocalist Shobha Gurtu, who had played with Don Cherry (1976), with Oregon (1984) and with John McLaughlin (1989), perfected a technique that draws equally from Indian tabla and dhol drums, from jazz music (cymbals, hi-hats) and from other ethnic cultures (gongs, congas, cowbells, snares). He even dipped resonating instruments in buckets of water to produce sounds that he could not produce with traditional instruments. He began his mission with the intense mixture of Indian music, jazz-rock and world-music of the CD Usfret (1988), featuring the likes of trumpeter Don Cherry, guitarist Ralph Towner, Indian violinist Lakshminarayana Shankar, Swedish bassist Jonas Hellborg, French keyboardist Daniel Goyone and his own mother, vocalist Shobha.
One of the best collections of Indian Vocal Music ever. Some rare and hard to find tracks and musicians are included in this very large disc set - 14 discs in total. The inlays within the pack provide song track details as well as the history of each musician. For anyone wishing to gain an insight into the Classical tradition, this is one of the best collections to start with. Saregama is proud to present this premium pact of 14 CDs that is a labor of respect and adulation. Comprising of vocal music spread over 108 years. The next step was to then select the 100 artistes featured herein over 135 tracks, their Gharanas their Gayakis and the Guru Shishya Parampara imbibed by them. This pack gives connoisseurs a glimpse of the creativity of performing artistes their methodologies their thinking patterns and how & why their signature styles also been artistes of repute with a prowess of their own.