Calcutta Chronicles: Indian Slide Guitar

Debashish Bhattacharya

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 8, 2008)
• Original Release Date: April 8, 2008
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Riverboat
• ASIN: B0014DC0D2
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #123,070 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Debashish Bhattacharya is an old hand at combining spirituality with outside-the-box adventuring and impish humor. For his ninth album released in the West, Calcutta Chronicles: Indian Slide Guitar Odyssey, he eschews outside collaborations but nonetheless pursues a multi-cultural agenda. The opening track, "Sufi Bhakti" merges two devotional paths, revealing each while slighting neither. Played upon anandi, a small slide ukulele invented by Bhattacharya, and flanked by Indian harp, tabla drums and a one stringed ektara, the piece has an Islamic flavor punctuated by pauses like polite bows. The title of "Gypsy Anandi" seems to refer less to Roma musical traditions than to their nomadic tendencies. The track, while constructed over a foundation of Indian raga, also encompasses Hawaiian and Afro-Andalucian influences. But on "Kolkata To Kanyakumari," a tribute to the philosopher Swami Vivekenanda (with whom Bhattacharya shares a birthday), he's back in the ancestral fold, combining aspects of North Indian and sacred Carnactic themes. As usual, Bhattacharya's flawless technique, astonishing as it is, takes a backseat to his inspired improvisations. Each tune unfolds in an urgent yet unrushed manner, revealing skeins of drone-laced song energized by ardent emotion and refined by uncountable generations of soul-deep musical intellect. --Christina Roden

Product Description

Calcutta Chronicles: Indian Slide-Guitar Odyssey is a musical journey through the centuries of guitar playing in India. Using three unique guitars that BBC award winner Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya designed himself, each beautiful raga explores influences ranging from Gypsy to Sufi with deep sensitivity and free-flowing movement between past and present, tradition and innovation.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A 'must' listen. Highly recommended., May 22, 2008

By	India - See all my reviews

Our perceptions of Indian classical music may have hardly moved on since the Beatles absorbed Ravi Shankar's tingling sitar in the 1960s, but these superb releases from younger artists show how ancient forms are evolving as India emerges as an economic superpower.
Master of the Indian slide-guitar Debashish Bhattacharya adapts the swooning tones of an instrument imported from Hawaii in the 1920s to the open spaces of the traditional raga. The eclectic influences - from Arab-Andalusian to country and western - put one in mind of a Calcutta Ry Cooder.
There are few guitarists who can claim to have created a style quite as individual as that of Debashish Bhattacharya.
He's not just a composer and virtuoso instrumentalist, but has also transformed Indian music by designing his own slide guitars, specially constructed to match the intricacies of Indian classical music.
Like a sitar player, he is backed by tabla and the tinkling sonic wash of the tamboura, but there the similarity ends.
His instrumentals include slow, drifting ragas, based around single-string improvisation, along with the Roma-inspired, gloriously upbeat "Gypsy Anandi", which mixes an Indian melody with western-influenced rhythms - plus echoes of the Hawaiian guitar, which became popular in India back in the 1920s.
There is a surprising emphasis on slower, thoughtful pieces, but the furious, controlled improvisation on the exhilarating "Aviskaar" is a reminder that he is one of India's master musicians.
The album meanwhile, builds into a succession of incendiary dialogues between two instruments long thought incompatible: the north Indian sitar and the south Indian veena. The fact that a woman plays the older, deeper-toned veena brings an interesting slant to the duo's dazzling empathic chemistry.
India isn't perhaps the place you'd look for a guitar talent. But Kolkata's Debashish Bhattacharya is one, and this solo album features music personally connected to him, often reflecting his city's artistic, multicultural aspects.
Favourites are the calm, still pieces such as a moving homage to the holy Ganges "Ganga Kinare", "Rasika", the wonderfully twangy "Kolkata to Kanyakumari" and the fusion feel of the opening Sufi Bhaktiand Hindi/ Muslim ("Sufi Bhakti").
He plays slide guitar, an instrument introduced to the city by legendary Hawaiian guitarist Tau Moe in the 1920s but Indianised by adding resonating strings and drone strings.
A 'must' have album.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Master Musican Brothers, May 4, 2008

By	E. Thompson (seattle) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I saw this guy in Kent at a local high school performance hall in Washington State a while ago. He is a musical master as is his tabla playing brother and I do me brillant. Even more amazing is that only 40 people showed up to see him at $20 bucks no less. There should have been 4000! Either the advertising sucked or our musical tastes have been degraded so far down the totem pole with Rap and American Idol that people don't even recognise a true artist. Even the Indian community didn't come out to see him.....pathetic.
Ry Cooder and numerous other guitar giants have all praised him and recorded with him. Be that as it may, if you want some serious 'soul' music buy this guys CD.

5.0 out of 5 stars He's playing better than ever, July 29, 2008

By	Tom Austin (Sonoma County, Ca USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've been listening to this CD for a few months now, and I keep learning new things. Pandit Debashish has made another masterpiece here. He has made his music accessible to ears unfamiliar with Hindustani music without losing any of the depth and richness that makes that music so magnficent for those already familiar. In this album, Debashish is at once universal and deeply personal as he tells musical stories of his much-beloved home of Kolkata. The pieces are shorter than traditional ragas, and they mix freely in other styles of music, as if to say "there are no walls in music."

The other thing that makes this record so deeply personal is that Debashish has his brother Subhashis with him as a full musical equal on this record. No mere accompanist, Subhashis is a full creator along with his brother. The cover photograph of this album truly captures the joy the brothers feel creating music together, and the joy one feels listening to them.


Once again, Debashish plays his Trinity of Guitars, and brings out new flavors in each instrument. The chaturangui mixes tonalities from many different Hindustani instruments and brings them to the listener's ear in startling new ways. The Gandharvi calls forth the very primal forces of the cosmos, Lord Shiva's dance of creation and destruction. The sweet, innocent Anandi applies balm to the world's wounds and reminds jaded adults that our children will renew the world once again.

Debashish has been one of the world's great musicians for some time now. He keeps getting better. This record is the evidence.