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How did you begin studying sarod and specifically under Ustad Ali Akbar Khan Sahib?\u00a0 What drew you to Indian classical music?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/h4>\nIt was about a girl.<\/span><\/p>\n It was 1969 and I was teaching a beer making class in Madison, Wisconsin. In the next room a young woman (Leslie Anderson Curchak, the elder sister of Lee Anderson, who 7 years later would introduce Marni – my future wife – to kathak) was teaching an Indian music appreciation class.\u00a0 She told me that she studied sitar with Ali Akbar Khan; I had heard of him in college back in 1966 when we were talking about the spiritual and cultural train coming from the East to the West.\u00a0 There was Zen meditation, mantra meditation, yoga, Ayurvedic medicine, tai chi, aikido, Chinese medicine, African drumming and Indian music – all these traditions and teachers were coming to the West. We marveled that anyone could study with Ali Akbar Khan \u2013 no audition necessary \u2013 just show up and pay your tuition. It was unheard of for master musicians to teach anyone who was interested.<\/span><\/p>\n And the question was: is the train coming on its own or is our generation pushing the train to the west by going and being captivated by these rich cultural traditions? Was it also a kind of reciprocal relationship where it gave meaning to the people from those cultures where the old traditions were increasingly ignored and undervalued? It is the irony of colonialism – they go and screw up a country and then their kids fall in love with its cultural treasures.<\/span><\/p>\n At that time I was playing open tuning guitar, a kind of modal music, and hanging out with some Black Afro – Cuban drummers at the university who taught me to play a simple rhythm they would then solo over. Then a visiting friend of Leslie and Lee\u2019s put a sarod in my hands and I made one sliding sound \u201cbrrrruuuum\u201d and went \u201cOh my god, I just made that sound.\u201d That was it, that sound. That vibration hit a visceral nerve and I felt a calling I could not ignore.<\/span><\/p>\n And so I came to California to study at the Ali Akbar College of Music.<\/span> It was September of 1971 and I started full immersion right away, thinking of nothing but music from morning til night. At the Ali Akbar College of Music (at that time housed in an old military academy), there were two dorms and a lot of people lived on campus. It wasn’t like a community college where people came from far away then went home. There was a giant kitchen with two meals a day and a dining hall where we all hung out when we weren\u2019t practicing, so we were around each other <\/span>a lot.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n When Khansahib (Ali Akbar Khan) went to India for the winter in \u201971\u2013\u201872, George Ruckert (senior student of Ali Akbar Khan who started in 1967) taught the younger students the approach to <\/span>riyaaz<\/span><\/i> (practice) with lots of exercises. It was a wonderful way to start because right from the beginning, rather than being totally on my own, I had a lot of guidance from George and a number of the other older students. Khansahib taught in the style we called the \u201cSufi scatter method\u201d. You just get thrown into this rushing river with rocks and obstacles, and you have to learn not only to swim, but to navigate and become skilled in that. There were many who \u201cdrowned\u201d or just floated away and left the College.<\/span><\/p>\n Two years later Leslie and I lived in the same little town called Forest Knolls as George and Lee Anderson (Leslie\u2019s sister and George\u2019s girlfriend at the time) and we had many dinners together. Pretty soon, George would say, \u201cHey, bring your sarod, let’s play a tune.\u201d So I had great mentoring from the start.<\/span> When I started the AACM in September of 1971, Dada (\u201celder brother,\u201d as he later instructed me to call him) had already been teaching for one semester.\u00a0 Across the hallway from the big room where Khansahib taught there was a large sunroom \u2013 that was the dance room. When you walked through the main entrance of the military academy you’d immediately hear the thundering of many feet and bells and Dada yelling above them all: \u201cFaster! Give me full power, you hippie California girls!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He was 26 years old at the time, and he definitely had a few chips on his shoulder. He also was trying to find himself and his place in this strange new world.\u00a0 He strongly felt he had the mantle of a kathaka upon him given by his guru and his parents and he was preparing to challenge the kathak \u201cestablishment\u201d in India. Many, particularly in India, didn’t yet recognize him, so he was \u201cturned up all the way\u201d most of the time to prove himself to the world. It was overwhelming for many, but I was drawn to the dance because my sister was a professional dancer and growing up I went to many modern dance performances.<\/span><\/p>\n From the beginning Dada engaged George to compose music for his dramas; the first major production done was Giri Govardan<\/em> in 1972.<\/span> In the beginning I was just focusing on getting up to speed on the sarod and figuring out how to learn and notate the flood of compositions Khansahib was teaching every week. The dancers were very much part of the College scene and we would socialize and sometimes practice or do little gigs together. Dada was always looking for people to play in his classes and I would occasionally play. I soon joined the New Maihar Band, first as a vocalist and later on sarod, and we would periodically perform for Dada\u2019s many dance -dramas where George Ruckert would compose and integrate Khansahib\u2019s music.<\/span><\/p>\n George accompanied Dada\u2019s solos from the beginning and continued sporadically through the decades nearly until Dada\u2019s passing. Peter Van Gelder and his vocalist wife Marsha accompanied many of Dada\u2019s solo concerts; they taught him Khansahib\u2019s Hindol Tarana. Then James Pomerantz started performing with Dada and the Company. In mid 1980, as I was transitioning into performing with him, Dada was asked to inaugurate the new sound stage at George Lucas\u2019 Marin County studio. Swapan Chaudhuri (\u201dSwapan da\u201d) played tabla, James played sitar, Dallas Smith played bansuri and I joined on sarod. Here\u2019s a photo of that night.<\/span><\/p>\n In the beginning with Dada I just played <\/span>lahar\u0101<\/span> <\/span><\/i>(cyclical melody that keeps the rhythm). Soon he wanted me to play his <\/span>bol\u00a0<\/span><\/i>(compositions) and <\/span>tih\u0101\u012b<\/span><\/span><\/i>s,<\/span> both for the excitement and to help cue the various tabla players accompanying him.<\/span><\/p>\n I believe this was the beginning of one of the major innovations that Dada made to kathak – he wanted the musician accompanist to be full in, not just a human metronome, as he once called me. He said to me, \u201cChris, try to steal my spotlight!\u201d He wanted me to be that much a part of it. I composed music for many of his <\/span>bols<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>ginti<\/span><\/i>s\u00a0<\/span>and\u00a0tih\u0101\u012b<\/span><\/i>s<\/span><\/span>\u00a0and learned to follow when he would improvise weaving parts of different compositions together. Then came the stories and the company dance dramas. Each character would have a theme and variation, sometimes in different ragas. I had been schooled by George Ruckert as he masterfully composed music for Dada\u2019s epic dance-dramas weaving in excerpts from Khansahib\u2019s raga lessons and the beautiful songs he\u2019d taught.<\/span><\/p>\n In November of 1975 Dada presented an epic version of Sita Haran<\/em>. George was composing for a large ensemble with four different parts plus tabla. Every rehearsal Dada would change a scene or a <\/span>bol<\/span><\/i> or a\u00a0tih\u0101\u012b<\/i><\/span><\/span>\u00a0and George would rewrite the music for the next rehearsal.\u00a0 On the morning of the show, Dada wanted to change something and George had to say, \u201cNo, that\u2019s it! The music is written and printed and it\u2019s too late to change anything!\u201d Dada\u2019s response was a challenge: \u201cWhat kind of musicians are you that you can\u2019t remember and you need to have it written out for you?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n We met in the hall the morning of the show, George handed out the music and we started our rehearsal about 10 am. The show was at eight and the soundcheck was done on the fly with the many dancers and endless scenes. It took until 7 pm to get through the whole drama. The show started at eight and ended about 11:30 pm.<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s an example of how passionately we all felt about our art:<\/span><\/p>\n I was learning the <\/span>bol<\/span><\/i>s in Dada\u2019s class and was really trying to play along with the dance and be evocative and creative with the music, even with the <\/span>lahara<\/span><\/i>. Dada\u2019s brother, Ritesh (we called him Babua), had just arrived in the States in the early 80s and he came to a rehearsal. After Dada left he said to me, \u201cThat’s not how you play <\/span>lahara;<\/span><\/i>\u00a0what are you doing? You’re not keeping it properly. You’re improvising and not showing the structure of the <\/span>t\u0101<\/span>l.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 What are you doing, man? This is not right!\u201d An intense argument ensued and before we knew it we were rolling around on the floor wrestling and yelling at each other. We were actually fighting about art!<\/span><\/p>\n This was like the stories about riots after Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring<\/em> and people fighting in the streets at operas for God-knows-what reason, and there were Babua and I having a physical altercation over the nature of kathak accompaniment!\u00a0 This was the beginning of a great friendship and we later collaborated on a number of projects with his and Joanna Das\u2019s (now deSouza) group M-Do and the Toronto Tabla Ensemble.<\/span> Those solo concerts that Dada would present in those very early days with Zakir-bhai were crazy. There was hardly room for music other than <\/span>lahar\u0101<\/span><\/span><\/i>\u00a0and a song at the end. The musicians would just keep the shape of the <\/span>t\u0101<\/span>l<\/span><\/i> and Dada and Zakir-bhai would go at it for hours! Thundering footwork, thundering tabla, long simultaneous improvisations, buckets of sweat on the floor! For me as a young sarod student it was both thrilling yet overwhelming and exhausting! Back and forth and back and forth, feeding off each other\u2019s energy and creativity. Zakir-bhai was a mind reader – he just knew where Dada was going and met him there, before sam, after sam, on-beat, off-beat. Here\u2019s a photo by Betsy Bourbon from one of those concerts; Chitresh-da with Zakir-bhai on tabla and James Pomerantz on sitar.<\/span><\/p>\n Later on when Swapan-da came to the States and eventually started playing with Dada it was different. They knew each other growing up in Kolkata, but I don\u2019t think they had performed together. As they got to know each other on stage, Swapan-da was solid, refined, steady and musical but always ready to bring the thunder.\u00a0<\/span>Pranesh Khan played many concerts with Dada during this period as well.<\/span>
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What were your early days of training like at the College?\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/h4>\n
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How did you encounter Pandit Chitresh Das?\u00a0 What was it like to meet him for the first time?<\/span><\/b><\/h4>\n
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How did you start playing and accompanying for Pandit Das and what was your experience making dance and music in the same space?\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n
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It was a very special time and place for the rise of Indian classical performing artists who would later become prolific masters of their respective traditions. What were some of the more exciting moments on stage between a young Chitresh Das and young Zakir Hussain and Swapan Chaudhuri?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/h4>\n
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