Uneasy mix of pop, Indian classical

It seems like an intriguing idea on the face of it: blending the Indian classical rhythms of the tabla with the electronic sounds and textures of contemporary pop, sprinkling in world music references for seasoning. With tabla master Zakir Hussain as the primary creative ingredient, it’s hard to imagine how anything could go wrong with such a colorful presentation.

But the offering of this musical melange via the performance by Tabla Beat Science on Saturday night at UCLA’s Royce Hall promised more than it delivered.

Not, however, when it came to the playing of Hussain, which was extraordinary. The same can be said for the superb violin playing and singing of Pandit Ganesh Iyer. While the concert was neither billed nor planned as a program strictly devoted to Indian classical music, it was nonetheless the rare passages dedicated to the work of this gifted duo that provided the highlights of the evening.

The much more extended, mixed-media segments were plagued by one primary flaw: Coordinating the playing of Hussain and Iyer with the music of bassist Bill Laswell, drummer Karsh Kale, keyboardist Sultan 32 and turntable player DJDisk essentially required the dumbing-down of every aspect of Indian classical music.

With Kale offering no more than two or three basic funk grooves, with Laswell’s bass rumbling at a decibel level virtually obscuring the other musicians, and with the sound of Disk’s turntable manipulations buzzing like an angry bee at a picnic, Hussain and Iyer had little to do other than add rudimentary exotic sounds to the mix.

Ethiopian singer Gigi Shibabaw and veteran jazz tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders provided the potential for attractive additional coloration. But their contributions, too, were largely overwhelmed by the ponderous, rhythmically flaccid weight of bass, drums and turntables.

And that was a shame, since the essential premise of the Tabla Beat Science quest for musical heterogeneity is a good one. But coming together into a well-balanced combination is going to require further evaluation of its essential ingredients.