AHMEDABAD:
A musical note as a sustained affirmation, as a prolonged pining, as an
instinct that smoothens its own path between many-shaded resolutions —
those capacities of sound on slide guitar were revealed for the first
time to Hindustani aficionados in India by Ahmedabad’s Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra.
Pandit Kabra, the slide guitar pioneer, passed away in the city on Thursday; he was 81.
He was the first musician to play a Hindustani raga on the slide guitar.
His
1967 vinyl album “Call of the Valley” became the force that allowed the
instrument to receive an honourable place in the Hindustani pantheon.
Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, the Hindustani slide guitar legend of our
time and Grammy winner, told TOI: “This is a very sad day for music.
Pandit Kabra created a trail for many musicians. He introduced the slide
guitar to the Hindustani oeuvre.” Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, the sarod
titan, told TOI: “This is very sad news. As recently as this January,
Kabra-ji had attended my Saptak recital in Ahmedabad, although the
programme lasted well into the night.”
Pandit Kabra would have had special reverence for sarod because his guru
was sarodiya Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, the Maihar Gharana divinity.
“Kabra-ji, who had attended the Scindia School in Gwalior, was inspired
by my guru and father, Ustad Haafiz Ali Khan saheb,” Ustad Amjad Ali Khan said. “And he began playing the slide guitar in the manner of the sarod.”
The Kabra family’s legacy has played a sterling role in Ahmedabad maintaining its stature as a prominent music centre of India.
“Pandit
Kabra’s elder brother, sarodiya Pandit Damodar Lal Kabra, was a guru of
my sister, Manju Mehta,” Pandit Bhatt said. Mehta, a sitarist and
Saptak custodian, is a celebrated mentor of scores of students.
As
for “Call of the Valley”, it was a collaboration between Pandit Kabra,
flautist Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, and santoor exponent Pandit
Shivkumar Sharma. At the time of recording, the three musicians were in
their 30s; but in “Call of the Valley”, they were answering the call
from music history.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/sliding-guitar-gently-weeps/articleshow/63738293.cms
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