India AIDS benefit is earnest, if flawed

There were two very different aspects to the “One Night for India” concert at the Wiltern LG on Saturday night.

The first had nothing to do with music. As a benefit to gather funds for the AIDS crisis in India, the program provided a disturbingly informative view of the expanding spread of the disease throughout the world’s most densely populated nation.

Between musical numbers, medical authorities from UCLA described the initial appearance of the disease, and a film documentary illustrated the difficult conditions in Indian AIDS clinics. One commentator after another underscored India’s potential for an infection rate reaching as high as 30 million, and beyond, over the next two decades if radical prevention measures are not taken.

Disturbing information, all of it, not as well known as it should be in the West, and a clear cause for concern everywhere.

If that sounds like a dark and disturbing environment for a music program, it’s hard to argue otherwise. But it was appropriate to provide meaningful context for a concert organized to gather much-needed financial support.

Perhaps understandably, the music itself focused upon a multilateral perspective. Performers from Indian backgrounds blended their sounds with Western grooves, and American artists reached for the passionate intensity of Indian sounds. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

Percussionist Karsh Kale’s climactic set, like the balance of the program, was amplified to the decibel pain level. In the process, the inherent subtleties of his tabla playing were lost in a wash of sound. When he moved to a Western drum set, the balance of sound and texture made more sense -- in a rock music context, at least -- but the sense of cultural fusion was largely left behind.

Singer and tabla player Tina Sugandh’s program took a similar tack, opening with a brief display of percussion skills but emphasizing -- especially in the song “Stay” -- her sheer physicality. Moving lithely across the stage, posing, tossing her wild mane, her singing was only a small aspect of a determinedly visually oriented presentation.

Performances by violinist-singer Lili Haydn and vocalist Kimberley Locke were somewhat more musically oriented. Haden whipped off simplistic but crowd-pleasing arpeggios, occasionally singing in high unison with her violin. And Locke displayed the melodramatic style that made her an “American Idol” runner-up. But, again, theatricality usually took priority over musicality.

The few sets in which Indian musical aspects took precedence were more appealing, despite the fact that they, too, were often amplified into aural distortion.

Nitin Sawhney’s guitar strumming on “Prophecy” was a propulsive display of musical universality, underlined by Indian modality. And the ensemble led by Matt Malley (of the group Counting Crows), playing the slide-guitar-like mohan veena, offered an engaging view of the rudimentary aspects of Indian classical music.