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Published on 7/24/08
Video
Cathedral of St. John the Divine; May 10, 2008
While officially a Pandit (master) for only four of his 44 years, Indian slide-guitarist Debashish Bhattacharya has already known more career spectacle than most instrumental heavyweights twice his age. Spawned by professional vocalist parents who also provided his current touring band—brother Subhasis (tabla) and sister Sutapa (vocals)—the prodigy got his first guitar at age three. His premiere on All India Radio came a year later, and he’s since been lauded by everybody from India’s Ministry of Information to the BBC.
Deeply schooled in the Hindustani classical tradition, but hardly a snob about it, the lifelong Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) resident has performed with John McLaughlin, recorded with Bob Brozman and rubbed elbows with Hawaiian steel-guitar great Tau Moe. On the newly released Calcutta Chronicles: Indian Slide Guitar Odyssey, he wears his xenophilia like a crown, delving into Islamic mysticism on the serpentine “Sufi Bhakti,” quickening a raga chassis with Arab-Andalusian bounce and Hawaiian sway on “Gypsy Anandi,” and lingering all too briefly in the realm of pure lasciviousness on the supersensual “Ganga Kinare.” Sure, he’s got all the technique you’d expect of a player with his credentials, along with a warmly ambassadorial onstage bearing that’s sparked comparisons to the likes of Pandit Ravi Shankar. But Bhattacharya’s greatest asset is soul—to the extent that if Robert Johnson were alive today, a collaboration would seem pretty much inevitable. (Note that Bhattacharya performs at 4am Sunday during this all-night concert.)
