Jazz Review : East to West, Gurtu Makes the Connection

What’s Trilok Gurtu’s secret? How can a tabla player trained in classical Indian percussion music fill a venue to overflowing for two consecutive shows? And attract an audience filled with young people, who typically are not drawn to experience the subtleties associated with the meticulous exploration of ancient ragas?

The answer, Thursday night at LunaPark, was directly associated with communication and connection. Gurtu, first of all, is not a traditionalist. Although he is a superb tabla player, his percussion setup was a global bazaar of instruments, a collection that enabled him to generate jazz, funk, Latin and, of course, Indian rhythms. Nor did he play a passive role, sitting magisterially behind his two tabla drums. Instead, wearing a portable microphone, he was a whirlwind of activity, sometimes strolling the tiny stage, singing the syllables of Indian percussion in rapid-fire sequences that sounded like a combination of bebop, scat and rap, at other times seated, but moving arms and legs in all directions to control his various instruments.

Gurtu’s music, in addition, was constructed upon the implicit awareness that Western audiences--beyond the devotees of Indian classical music--couldn’t care less about the intricacies of ragas and tablas. But they like the friendly, centering quality that a drone can produce, they like the exotic sounds of the sitar and the tabla, and they quickly apprehend--if they’re presented in accessible, foot-tapping fashion--the underlying rhythmic connections between the music of East and West. And Gurtu was so successful at delivering all those qualities that he actually managed to persuade the enthusiastic, shoulder-to-shoulder crowd to clap along in a 7/4 rhythm. Amazing.

Equally important, Gurtu’s personalized packaging of music--which began with his own culture before grazing through styles and attitudes from other areas--was done without demeaning any of the contributing elements. His rhythmic singing was, in fact, a stunning display of the complex verbal symbols that are essential to Indian classical percussion. His tabla playing was first-rate, and his use of jazz-style improvising, funk and jungle rhythms, and Brazilian harmonies was seamless without losing touch with the individual elements.

It was a performance, in short, with a secret that other artists would do well to learn--that there is a world of music out there to be explored.