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A Canadian Grammy of sorts... it is given by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. So, is it a classic case of ‘like father like son’ or a son trying hard to emerge out of his father’s shadow? Smiles Salil, the young charming face of Indian classical music, and avers, "See, there is no question of trying to break free of my father’s image, it is only a part of my personal enrichment process." Besides, he insists that he has never blindly aped his father, "For, I don’t suffer from the ‘my daddy strongest’ syndrome. In fact, my father, who is also my guru, always told me—don’t listen to me alone. Absorb all influences." So, unlike many other classical musicians he didn’t grow up to the sounds of classical ragas alone but an assortment of musical genres. Any wonder that his album is making waves and picking up rave reviews, including laudatory comments from the Guitar Player magazine. Mixing different styles from blues to jazz to neo jazz to funk was no big deal for Salil. So, is fusion the buzzword today? He answers, "Fusion is a highly misunderstood term. I would rather call it a collaborative effort with the Canadian Blues legend Doug Cox. It is a musical marriage of blues music and Indian music." Of course, the base, he insists, arethe Indian classical ragas and he rattles off names like Jog, Rageshwari and Madhuvanti that he has used in this album. Without doubt, he insists that classical music’s range is wide and all-encompassing but once it is peppered with Cox’s music and accompanists Dinah Di’s jazz bass and John Boutte’s funk, the flavour becomes unmistakably global. What do purists say?
"Oh, they are welcome to their opinion. But I know I am not going
to be hemmed in by a particular I am flying free and ready to adapt to newer and newer musical sensibilities." It isn’t as if he has discovered the West only now. The first Indian musician to perform at the German Bavirian Parliament in Munich and at Iceland for its Prime Minister, he has also performed at several international music festivals around the globe. audiences," he shares, "are without doubt more musically literate. And before they come to concerts they do their homework about who the artiste is and what his music represents." The fact that he plays their instrument – guitar – albeit modified and reinvented does help him to strike a better chord. But now, with the new album Slide to Freedom 2, also nominated for the Grassroots Grammy, he feels the reach of his music is growing and spanning new frontiers. No, this inheritor of rich classical musical legacy, the 10th link in the Bhatt lineage, hasn’t bid adieu to classical notes over which his command, especially in the drut laya, even has father dearest mesmerised. Only, he is pragmatic enough to understand that global audiences cannot be reached with classical music alone. Taking immense pride in the new epithet of the Global Indian that has come his way, he is keen to strum many more global sounds. On missing the award he says, "Well, nomination itself was an award." On Indian awards, though he has received the Maharana Mewar Foundation Award and Abhinav Kala Samman, he rues, "Most awards are given rather too late in life or, worse, till after the artist is no more. We are a land of carcass worshippers." Awards, he deems are like a pat on the back, the essential nod of encouragement and small stepping stones. However, one moment that shall equal many milestones at one go would be: "The day my father plays my creation the Satvik Veena I would have arrived for sure." Satvik, by the way, is the name of his prodigal 12 year-old-son whose grasp over ragas is already making connoisseurs sit up and take notice. Yet another like-father-like-son saga in the making? Well, right now, this young father, high on Juno Award nomination, is keener to find his place on the global musical scene. While he has already worked on guitar collaboration with German musician Mathias Muller, titled Mumbai to Munich, Slide to Freedom, part three, too, is in the pipeline. Gliding and sliding away to freedom, Salil soars high in the musical expanse that is expanding all the time.
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THE father, renowned
musician Pt Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, invented the Mohan Veena and the son,
Salil Bhat, went ahead and created the Satvik Veena. The father won
the prestigious Grammy Award in 1994 and the son was nominated for the
Juno Award for his latest album Slide to Freedom 2 in the Best World
Music category this year.