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Ravi Shankar plays the classical music of India with pristine technique — but I'm not swept away. With Alif Laila, I am. Her sitar-playing brings new emotion, drama, dynamics to these centuries-old ragas. Tari, a world-renowned tabla master, frames her sitar with beguiling percussion melodies, played with boggling dexterity and heart-stopping expressiveness. Wait till you hear the thunderous power of their crescendos or the nanosecond tightness of their startling rhythmic transitions. Sitting directly in front of them, our weird two-mike array picked up subliminally delicate string-bending nuances, as well as the feathery brush of calloused fingertips on taut tabla skins — details I've never heard, even on my best sitar recordings. Fans tell me our Flamenco CD has locked in a new sonic standard for acoustic guitar; Sangam, I think, does the same for the sitar and tabla. (#11782)
Alif Laila, sitar
Ustad Sattar Khan, tabla |
