Purbayan Chatterjee & Rakesh Chaurasia  – Saath Saath

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A first here for me is a review of a jugalbandi of Hindustani classical music, courtesy of sitar maestro Purbayan Chatterjee and world-acclaimed flautist Rakesh Chaurasia. Quite literally meaning entwined twins, a jugalbandi features a duet of two solo musicians, or vocalists, who perform on an equal footing where each musician is neither the sole soloist nor sole accompanist, effectively both being lead players.

At five years of age, Purbayan’s father gave him a sitar. He introduced him to the music of Nikil Banerjee, who, along with Ravi Shankar, had been mentored by Baba Alauddin Khan, one of the most influential teachers of Indian classical music of the Twentieth Century. Two years later, he met Nikhil, and by age 12, his life-long obsession with the sitar was assured. 

Born into a musical family, he is the nephew and child prodigy of the flute maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia; Rakesh Chaurasia has already won many awards for his work. In addition to his extensive work within the Indian film industry, his playing of the bansuri, an Indian bamboo flute, is also acknowledged around the world.

Friends for over 20 years, the pair have much in common. In addition to their obvious dedication to respecting the classical tradition, both have bravely pushed boundaries, unafraid to experiment with their music. For Purbayan, one life-changing moment came on one of his many visits to California during the 1990s when he heard the jazz of Ornette Coleman and with it the realisation that “in order to deeply immerse yourself in tradition, one needs outside influence.” Nowhere is this better exemplified than on his previous release, the much-lauded album Unbounded (Abaad), a collaborative project merging local flavours of Latin, Jazz, Folk, Country, Sufi tradition, Western and Hindustani classical music that featured musicians from Afghanistan, India, the UK and USA, including Ustad Zakir Hussain, Bela Fleck, Pat Metheny and Gary Husband. Similarly, Rakesh, whilst recognising that “classical music is the foundation of all other kinds of music”, ventured into the world of electronica with Talvin Singh on their fascinating 2002 Vira album and, more recently, is to be found leading his fusion band Rakesh and Friends.

The pair have recorded together in the past, for example, on 2009’s String Struck. Still, this latest release Saath Saath, meaning ‘together’ or ‘doing something together’, recorded live in one day in March 2022 in a small chamber orchestra environment in one, sometimes two takes, is issued to celebrate that very same togetherness.

Co-written by the pair and featuring table players Ojas Adhya and Satyajit Talwalkar, the album is firmly in the spirit and tradition of North Indian raga music. Within this tradition, in what sounds an oxymoron, this style of classical music is heavily improvisational, although the improvisation has to occur within a very well-defined structure. The melodic components are complex and deep, with precise mathematical rhythmic structures suggesting feelings which can be pensive or playful; spirituality, peace, joy, love, and serenity, for example. The seven ragas featured here follow the theme of passing day and night over two CDs.

All four musicians play on the opening track, Lalit, a slow, serene devotional piece befitting a 3 a.m. to 6 a.m dawn raga, dedicated to the name of Lord Krishna, Lalit meaning one who is beautiful, before Purbayan and Ojas embark on the twelve-minute Shuddh Sarang. This daytime raga, noon until 3 p.m., probably the most popular prakar (type) from the Sarang family of ragas, features truly astounding table accompaniment, Ojas’s spontaneous creativity belying his age, but perhaps unsurprising as he features in record books as India’s youngest performing tabla player, a feat achieved when he made his debut at four years old.  

Rakesh and Satyajit pair up for the last track on the first CD, the eighteen-minute long Madhuvanti. With madhu meaning honey, this soothing afternoon raga oozes sweet love and romance. The latter musician, introduced to Hindustani traditional music at four, first performed at age seven and performs here with enthralling dynamics.

The four performers are reunited for all four tracks on CD2. If the opening raga on CD1 had not already convinced the listener, it is clear over the next fifty or so minutes that we are witnessing musicians of the highest virtuosity playing with extraordinary synergy and fluency. Imagine a musical conversation, principally between the two main protagonists, in which the chemistry and understanding between the two is so totally electric and intimate, and all through the medium of the sitar and bansuri.

Yaman Madhya Laya, a single taken from the album (see live video below), despite its 16-and-a-half minute length, is truly mesmerising, metaphorically poetry in musical notes, in another romantic raga to be played in the first quarter of the night.

The shorter Yaman Drut, also a single release, is another captivating early evening raga. The flute and sitar glide and weave effortlessly, at times soothing and slow-flowing, at others almost surging in scintillating beauty, all over relentless tabla rhythms which seem, at times, to drift out of our planetary plane. This Yaman Drut bandishen (fixed, melodic composition in Hindustani classical music) is described as “a little bit of a crescendo piece in the album”, and there is no question that its final intensity is prone to deliver goosebumps.

The final 6-9 p.m. evening raga, Pahadi, another 18-minute piece, has a Kashmiri folk melody as its origin and certainly combines both the playful and pensive aspects of the tradition mentioned above, although these ears possibly detect just the hint of a slightly bluesy phrase or two.  A similar perception occurs on the closing track, Bhairavi. Traditionally a morning raga, but in modern times, as here, often performed as a concluding, final piece in concerts, the album is brought to a soothing, soulful and mellifluous ending.

Nikhil Banerjee once said, “Music is the language of the heart”.  Anyone appreciative of ultra-high quality music, paying no heed to boundaries, labels or pre-conceived thoughts, ideas and perceptions, should consider spending time listening to Saath Saath; the performances are majestic and will speak to the soul as well as the heart.

Saath Saath will be performed Live at The Darbar Festival, Barbican, on 16^th October 2022. Details here.