Prasanna

The power chord and the “big riff”: where would rock guitar players be without them? Use them in the correct proportion, add a dash of distortion, and a heaping dose of loud volume, and you have the makings of a rock song. I use the word “song”, but most of us know that the real purpose of the power chord/big riff combo is to drive the guitar player to meet their truest best friend – the guitar solo.

The big riff (in most cases a melodic theme of a piece) is especially suited to this purpose. There ain’t a guitar player alive who hasn’t been in his bedroom or basement, “discovered” a big riff, soloed for 10 minutes, repeated the big riff, soloed for another 10 minutes, added a new small riff to the big riff, soloed for 15 minutes; and repeated the process for at least an hour. You might play longer if the big riff starts feelin’ really good to you.

So what would you get if you combined the big riff with the Carnatic ragas of southern India? The result would sound like some of the tracks from guitarist Prasanna’s latest CD, Electric Ganesha Land. Comparisons to John McLaughlin’s Shakti are inescapable. But Prasanna’s music is a natural evolution of the spirit of Shakti: taking disparate musical forms and blending them together. But instead of the “East meets West” hybrid, we get “old with the new”. Prasanna combines the rock guitar big riff with traditional Indian percussion and rhythms to Rock-out on the Raga.

The CD opens with “Eruption In Bangalore”, a solo guitar piece. But the “eruption” isn’t volcanic; it’s closer to “Eruption” from Van Halen’s first album. Beautifully phat and thickly distorted power chords fill your speakers. And then Prasanna starts wailing way for five minutes. It’s like an alap (an unaccompanied solo/into to a raga) on steroids and cranked to “10”. When the piece was over, I took out my lighter, lit it, raised it above my head, and started whistling and yelling “mooore!!!”

The next track, “Snakebanger’s Ball” features Prasanna playing over the rhythms laid down by percussionists playing the ghatam (cast copper pot) and the kanjira (a sort of hand drum). Prasanna sets up the big riff as a framework for the piece. His solo includes the slurs and bends of Indian techniques. This isn’t very different from Indian classical music where the soloist improvises over a melodic theme while the drums play around with the rhythm. But rather than a sitar, sarod, violin, sarangi, etc., you have a stompin’ electric guitar.

And it works. The big riff of the rock guitar is right at home within the structure of the raga-like pieces. If you think Indian classical is too “complicated” for your taste, Electric Ganesha Land has familiar territory for you to move around in while taking you a step closer to understanding and appreciating the music of India. You don’t need to count out the tala (rhythmic time), just crank it up.

The CD is a mix of solo and overdubbed guitar pieces, and the tracks with the percussionists. Prasanna uses a variety of clean tones, distorted tones, and effects on his guitar which expand the point of a “non-traditional” instrument playing in the context of a traditional/classical form. The production is very good, making good use of the stereo spread and a nice balance between the guitar and various drums.

Electric Ganesha Land is dedicated to Jimi Hendrix (the title being an obvious nod to Electric Ladyland). In his liner notes, Prasanna mentions that although India is land of the sitar, Jimi would have found a home there. With the music on this CD, I think Prasanna proves the point. - Rod Sibley, Abstractlogix.com, May 18, 2006

As the first shredded notes of "Eruption in Bangalore" explode from the guitar, the Hendrix psychedelia couldn't be more apparent. But the slide work is strongly reminiscent of gamakas on the veena. Even the melodic arrangement smacks of a Carnatic foundation. Built on that foundation, however, is a wealth of first-hand experience in jazz, blues and classic rock.

Welcome to Prasanna's Electric Ganesha Land, a hard-rocking tribute to Jimi Hendrix, which Prasanna describes as "the journey of the modern rock guitar through the ancient temple towns of south India with the sounds of Carnatic music wafting through the air".

Paying homage

At first glance, the tribute seems an unusual choice. After all, the music industry revels in the sounds of the hood, and classic rock seems the farthest thing on most listeners' minds. However, for Prasanna, there isn't any other guitarist more deserving of the tribute. "Hendrix opened the doors for musical explorations on the electric guitar. That is exactly what I do," he says at the launch of his Electric Ganesha Land, at Landmark.

There's no better way to describe this latest album than as an exploration. Backed by a powerful Carnatic percussion section featuring Haridwaramangalam A.K. Palanivel on the thavil, B.S. Purushotham on the kanjira and kunnakol, Prapancham Ravindran on the mridangam, S. Karthick on the ghatam, kunnakol and morsing and Papanasam Sethuraman on kanjira, Prasanna takes the listener through an exotic journey through a mystical middle-land, which captures the practised precision of Carnatic music and yokes it together with the capricious imagination of the music of the '60s.

Listen to the "Snakebanger's Ball", for instance, and you get hints of the dichotomy that India still lives in, at once the land of snake charmers and IT gurus. Then there's the quirky "Pot Belly Blues", a spoof on music styles like bluegrass, says Prasanna. One of the lighter, frothier songs on the album, it's a nice reminder not to take things too seriously, nicely contrasting heavier songs on the album like "Dark Sundae in Triplicane".

Other great tracks on the album include the mellow and wholesome "4th Stone from the Sun", the pensive "Bowling for Peace" and "Eruption... "— the best possible introduction to the rest of the album. With great production and a tight backing band, Electric Ganesha Land is a wonderfully varied mix of crossover music.

It is this vast potential for variety that has always drawn Prasanna towards the guitar. "The guitar is the most versatile instrument in the world. There are so many styles that would never have existed without the guitar. There wouldn't be any rock, tex mex, flamenco, blues... without the guitar. Almost every modern music style, except jazz owes a lot to the guitar," he says.

There is an added attraction on the album for most rock music fans. The liner notes for the album have been written by legendary bassist Victor Wooten of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Wooten and Prasanna collaborated on Prasanna's last album, Be The Change, besides performing numerous concerts together. Arguably one of the best bassists in the world, Wooten is a "very special musician and human being," says Prasanna. "Working with him is a humbling experience," he adds.

Besides Wooten, the roster of artistes he has jammed with is a veritable who's who of the contemporary music scene. Over the years, he has worked with everyone from Alphonso Johnson of the hugely successful band Weather Report to virtuoso saxophonist Joe Lovano to Belgian avant-garde jazz band Aka Moon.

Indeed, one of Prasanna's greatest advantages is his exposure to a wide array of musical influences. With formal training in both Carnatic classical and a degree from the Berklee School of Music, Prasanna has managed quite efficiently to absorb the best of both Indian and Western musical styles. He starts off naming the five greatest musical influences in his life, and finds he can't do it. Even before he has scratched the surface, he has already named close to a dozen musicians, including Bach, John Coltrane, Thyagaraja, Stravinsky, Hendrix and Dikshathar. "I see something of value in many different kinds of musicians. In my head they all coexist, and there is no comparison."

`Not fusion'

Despite Electric Ganesha Land and his earlier albums falling within the genre of fusion music, Prasanna is reluctant to call what he plays fusion. The term is just defensive and has different connotations in different countries, he insists, and hence means little to any musician. "There are already too many labels around and they kill the music. Why do we need to add more labels and confuse things?" As for the classicists who insist that explorations such as this dilute Carnatic music, he answers with equal vehemence: "These debates are a waste of time. I concentrate on my art and just do what comes naturally."

What comes naturally has worked quite well for Prasanna. With do - Rakesh Mehar, The Hindu Newspaper, Bangalore, India, May 10, 2006

"There's usually a very particular audience for the virtuoso progressive guitar albums- those that echo Steve Vai, Satriani and Hendrix- but Prasanna's "Electric Ganesha Land" invites a whole new population of listeners. It is, without a doubt, a most unusual contribution to the sphere of guitar rock but even more so to another sphere we don't see all that often: the melding of world music with western electric guitar practice. Bringing in tabla and microtonal, Carnatic vocabulary, this Indian guitarist blends classic rock, blues, grunge, metal, pyschedelia and occasional bebop influenced Jazz with his distinctive approach. Taking more than 27 traditional South Indian ragas into an arena rock sound, his album is a real example of agility, creativity and daring brilliance." - Editor, CDBABY

Concept albums – especially fusion concept albums – are a publicity person’s nightmare. After all these decades of sitars backed by drum sets, guitars playing alongside ghatams, just how do you convey a sense of the music anymore without resorting to East-meeting-West clichés? That’s why it helps when something like Electric Ganesha Land comes along, for the copy practically writes itself: A Carnatic and Jazz Musician Pays Tribute to a Rock-Guitar God. This is ‘Guitar’ Prasanna’s nod to Jimi Hendrix, and he says, “I wanted to do something different, something based on Carnatic music while also exploring the electric guitar in a very personal manner. And I think Jimi opened the door to all electric guitar exploration.”

So, naturally, I ask if Electric Ganesha Land came about from wanting to play Carnatic music in a style that includes distortion and feedback and all those Hendrix signatures. “That’s there in the music, definitely,” says Prasanna, whose previous album, Be the Change, had a lot of Carnatic music, but featured a completely western lineup of musicians. “Here, I wanted to showcase what I consider world-class percussion talent in Chennai. So both these ideas came together – a guitar-rock album, and using the mridangam, ghatam, thavil, and so on. The Carnatic thing is also about my roots. It’s an honest depiction of me and my playing.”

For all that talk about Carnatic music, Prasanna insists Electric Ganesha Land isn’t about ragas so much as rock-guitar sounds. “For instance, I used custom-made tube amps that I got from Auroville from an American named Roy Chvat. I recorded in big rooms designed for string orchestras, where I was just this one guy with a guitar. I didn’t compose the songs as much as I designed the sound for them.” That’s why the track titled Iguana on a Funky Trail doesn’t have a melody. “It only has a riff.” And Dark Sundae in Triplicane has seven or eight different guitar sounds. “I chose sounds that I thought were representative of the whole spectrum of rock guitaring.”

And yes, those names do mean something. Prasanna explains that Eruption in Bangalore came about because, “The city represents the contrast between what people know as India, the land of snake charmers, and what India is today, a place of C++ programmers. The song is a tribute to Bangalore, where I have a lot of fans who’ve been very supportive.” The title is also a nod in the direction of the similarly-named – and now legendary – guitar solo from Van Halen’s explosive debut album, and then Prasanna says, “I don’t want to begin explaining all the titles and make things too literal.”

But I prod a little and he admits that 4th Stone from the Sun owes a large part of its name to Hendrix’s Third Stone from the Sun. “Also, in my song, I’m using a certain harmoniser and changing intervals. So although the piece progresses from Hamsadhwani to other ragas, it’s tied together with the concept of fourths as an interval. Hence, 4th Stone from the Sun.” Then Sri Jimi, which is the closest in spirit to Hendrix, is so titled because it’s in Sri raga. And Pot Belly Blues is dedicated to ghatam players, “who proudly display their pot bellies while playing.”

As for Iguana, it got its name because the kanjeera is so funky in that song, and the kanjeera, of course, is made of iguana skin. I tell Prasanna that this number reminded me of Ilayaraja in his Tik Tik Tik days, the early eighties. The bass guitar riding along the synth bursts… things like that. Was this some sort of tribute, maybe a subconscious nod? “It wasn’t planned that way,” he says, “but yes, the wah-wah style of guitar playing I used was something that Ilayaraja used a lot in that period.”

That’s not the only reminder of Ilayaraja on this album. The maestro, in his heyday, had this near-miraculous ability to compose music that was incredibly layered, yet so much fun. There’s a number here, Snakebanger’s Ball, where there’s this bit in the raga Punnagavarali that segues to another raga, Subhapantuvarali. I tell Prasanna that perhaps for the first time in my life, I’d listened to a cheerful Subhapantuvarali. It’s usually so full of pathos when sung or played.

He first clarifies that the song was originally only in Subhapantuvarali. “The riff in the other raga just came out in the studio.” Then he gets serious about the stereotyping of ragas. “Any raga can express any emotion. Mukhari is supposed to be sad, but I jump when I listen to it. In any case, outside of my Carnatic kutcheris, I use ragas mainly as visual imagery, to paint a sonic landscape of a theme. For instance, in my album Peaceful, there’s a track Gaza, where I’ve used the raga Simhendramadhyamam to reflect on what’s happening in the Gaza Strip. So Simhendramadhyamam is a tool to get to the idea.”

Prasanna seems to have worked with a lighter set of tools in Electric Ganesha Land. He has stayed off the big, heavy ragas to a large extent, while there are unusual ones – like Revathi in - Baradwaj Rangan, The Indian Express Newspaper, Chennai, India, June 11, 2006

Prasanna, a Berklee alumnus of South Indian origin, displays formidable guitar chops and compositional ambitions on Be the Change, focusing on difficult, polished jazz-rock fusion with pronounced Indian characteristics. Playing acoustic and electric guitars, Prasanna enlists the rhythm section services of Victor Wooten and Alphonso Johnson on bass and Derico Watson and Ralph Humphrey on drums. Reedists Jeff Coffin and Andy Suzuki join on a number of cuts, and Shalini makes two appearances singing sanskrit verses. Prasanna himself croons the motivational lyrics to "Satyam", exhibiting his mastery of konnakol(Indian vocal percussion).

Prasanna's take on Indian-influenced jazz is quite different from John Mclaughlin's - or anyone elses's. Whether he's cranking up his Les Paul or caressing his Alvarez Yairi, he colors his jazz-savvy lines with a distinctly non-western quarter-tone phraseology and sitar-like embellishment. The effect is disarming, especially on fusion tracks like "The Grapevine" and "Uncensored" which are otherwise fairly conventional. "Ragabop", an acoustic tour de force, rises above the slickly produced electric tracks, suggesting a gritty, natural blend of idioms that could gain Prasanna wide recognition.

For those familiar with Prasanna's hypnotic electric guitar work in a Carnatic (South Indian classical) setting, the pop-oriented aesthetic of Be the Change could be jarring. But the album, despite its unevenness, is anchored by a substantive and highly promising talent. - David Adler, Jazz Times Magazine, Nov 2004

On Be the Change, Madras, India-born Prasanna writes, plays and sings his happy fusion of jazz with the highly spiced, electrically charged sensibilities of Karnatic music. These are South Indian classical pieces (talas) that end to be rhythmically intense, classically executed and based on intricately composed forms (unlike the more familiar North Indian style, which is more expressive and improvisational).

Prasanna's guitar works Karnatic elements deftly into pieces based in jazz form and harmony; his distinctive use of ornamental trill is evident in his acoustic/electric solo on the ballad "Kalyani Connection". His 'Blues' exemplifies how hypnotic rhythmic kernels may infuse jazz-rock with refreshingly clever, psychologically uplifting ideas.

Prasanna plays solid guitar and sings fevered lines with the decisive control and authority that marks the best Karnatic art. Bassists Victor Wooten and Alphonso Johnson, and drummers Rakph Humphrey and Derico Watson play in this rarified idiom with majestic chops and quicksilver reflexes: Picture dancers moving in astonishingly elaborate choreographic unison like a flock of shore-birds. "Ragabop" effectively juxtaposes bebop and raga by seesawing between swing and straight. Upper reeds give wonderful buoyancy to "Pangaea Rising", "Satyam" and "Grapevine". Yet Prasanna's cosmic message in "Satyam", a centerpiece inspired by ancient Hindu scriptures (Upanishads), exhorting us to aspire to goals pf betterment through concentration and positive thinking, might be better realized jazz-wise with more conviction and variety in the bubbly solos. - Fred Bouchard, Downbeat Magazine, Oct 2004

Another guitarist who isn't afraid to crank up the volume and stomp on a distortion pedal in pursuit of his own singular muse is Prasanna. In his "Jazz with a world view" approach on his debut recording, Be the Change (Susila Music), the South Indian musician and Berklee grad fuses cutting edge jazz with ancient Carnatic music. Surrounded by an all-star casting including bassists Victor Wooten and Alphonso Johnson, drummer Ralph Humphrey and Flecktones saxophonist Jeff Coffin, Prasanna melds aggressive electric lines, slamming backbeats, melodic motifs and complex polyrhythms and subdivisions in a kind of kinetic, groove oriented stew that recalls Jai Uttal's Pagan Love Orchestra with hints of Discipline-era King Crimson.

On "Ragabop" Prasanna's dazzling acoustic guitar work closely mimics the non-tempered phrasing of Indian sarod (a non-tempered four-stringed instrument) while also incorporating elements of 4/4 swing. On "Ta ka ta ki ta Blues" he clearly and slowly spells out the rhythmic phrasing of traditional Indian konnakol singing (Indian scatting) while incorporating big-as-a-house backbeats from drummer Derico Watson. This piece deftly shifts from swinging jazz passages to raga feel while featuring a rather blistering electric guitar solo by Prasanna. Witness the highly successful melding of idioms which occurs on the dramatic, jazzy meditation "Dharma Becomes Alibama", featuring some uncharacteristic acoustic bass work from Johnson, and on "Uncensored", fueled by Humphrey's muscular drumming and an impressive Brecker-style tenor sax work from Andy Suzuki. On "Bliss Factor - Part II", Prasanna adapts a Hindu philosophical text (sung by South Indian vocalist Shalini) to a slam-funk groove laid down by Wooten and Watson. He also soars brilliant over the top in non-tempered fashion on both electric and acoustic guitars. His closing number - the heartfelt, uplifting ballad "Kalyani Connection" (dedicated to the late guitarist and Indian music devotee Shawn Lane) - features the guitarist "singing" lyrically through his electric guitar (set on warm, infinite sustain, a la Robert Fripp) and soloing adventurously on acoustic.

A highly accomplished plectorist and true world-music visionary, Prasanna has an obvious command of both jazz and Indian vocabularies and fuses them seamlessly in this intriguing marriage of East meets West. - Bill Milkowski, Jazziz, July 2004

For this, his second solo project, the astonishing Indian (and currently Bostonian) guitarist Prasanna assembles two world-class bands, going south for Flecktones Victor Wooten, saxman Jeff Coffin and drummer Derico Watson; and west (or for him, further east) for seminal fusion bassist Alphonso Johnson, drummer Ralph Humphrey and multi-instrumentalist Andy Suzuki.

Right off, "Pangaea Rising" metaphorically merges and recalls the supercontinent of world-fusion, if you will, with emerging subsections akin to its separating subcontinents. Rock riffs subsume fluttering sax, counting down the launch into Prasanna’s instantly acoustic solo, rife with flawlessly executed, far-eastern inflection, effervescing as the backing rock riff cycles back in. You can envision Wooten’s infectious grin as he holds it all together with seamless shifts in complex bass lines that would make other players grit their teeth. By the way, 23/4 has never grooved so hard!

"Takatakita Blues" uses sly alternation of cycling and walking bass for liquid guitar tone to play off of the melody and the solo section, with drummer Watson going stratospheric for the breakdown and ending. "Ragabop" is just that, the burning acoustic jazz track that had to be made, Alphonso’s fretless bass doubling the bop head, then buoying Prasanna’s acoustic ragamorphisms, which progress in orderly fashion from straight ahead and uncolored to panethnically ornamental, chockfull of slides and bends. "Grapevine" demonstrates Wooten’s inventiveness as an accompanist, with Prasanna squeezing strat tone from his Les Paul. He takes occasion to fire off his loosest and most incendiary solo on the date, building to passages during which every 32nd note seems impossibly slid into and out of. Wooten even spices the mix with his now patented slap gymnastics.

"Satyam" begins with Shalini, Prasanna’s wife, singing ethereally, gorgeously, life-affirmingly, the Sanskrit verses from the ancient Mundaka Upanishads, or Wisdom Bibles, of India. A prog-rock soundscape created by the power trio of Prasanna, Humphrey and Alphonso, who’s at the peak of his game throughout, is supplemented by Suzuki's woodwinds, enmeshing Prasanna’s commanding vocal before he throws in a Hendrixian solo for good measure. Sung in English, the lyrics mirror the Sanskrit’s emphasis of living life’s karma truthfully, and expand on Mahatma Gandhi’s perhaps most powerful maxim: "You must be the change you wish to see in this world."

Of the program, "Satyam" and Shalini's rapturous vocal showcase "Bliss Factor" most suggest the staggering potential of this music to reach through and around the mere "jazz audience" to the rest of world’s hungry listeners. Human nature becomes most profound when disparity begets commonality, when religion, custom, tradition, idealism and all manner of cultural bounty merge to reveal we are all, on some level, joyously, wondrously similar. With all the vast individuality he brings as a composer, improviser and band-member, Prasanna comes together with these two virtuoso groups of western musicians and melds seamlessly.

He doesn’t just call a couple of all-star sessions so he can spread his stuff over the top. He more than creates something new-he is something new. That’s where the title of the record comes in. Things are changing - east does more than meet west here- directions cease to matter. In the context of music, which so often accelerates past the progress of humans in the remainder of their endeavor, Prasanna has already transcended being a catalyst or orchestrator of change 'he’s become it'- wherever he pops up, there it shall be. A godsend from India to us, he has, through his formidable gifts, combined with impassioned desire and commitment, arrived seemingly instantly full-blown, yet developing.

- Phil Di Pietro, Allaboutjazz.com

When the fusion of guitar jazz and traditional Indian music is discussed, either John McLaughlin or the late Shawn Lane will immediately come to mind. One can add to those ranks the marvelous talents of Prasanna, who has the added legitimacy of being a native Indian. On this entertaining album Prasanna has achieved a most impressive translation of sitar technique to the electric guitar, his fleet fingers painlessly pulling off the usual bends and shudders of the native instrument and making it seem natural (except for the burning "Ragabop", which leans toward the supernatural). Factor in the presence of some stellar sidemen, and the result is a wonderful cross-cultural melange.

There are two core ensembles at work here. Flecktones bandmates Jeff Coffin and Victor Wooten, and their frequent drum partner Derico Watson, work their special magic on several tracks. All of Coffin’s horns are overdubbed into a wind orchestra on the opener, "Pangaea Rising". The melody keeps alternating between lyrical and driving, a wild ride. Prasanna recites the rhythmic tala syllables on "Ta ka ta ki ta Blues" before his guitar and Coffin’s tenor fire up the cyclical theme, and "The Grapevine" unfolds quietly as the guitar and bass exchange sinuous lines. Following a pensive acoustic guitar statement, Wooten and Watson support Prasanna and vocalist Shalini on the punchy second part of "Bliss Factor". The pinpoint unison between the guitar and voice on its exotic theme is simply indescribable.

The second core group here includes reedman Andy Suzuki (Brubeck, Corea, Kilauea), drummer Ralph Humphrey (Frank Zappa, Don Ellis, Manhattan Transfer), and bassist Alphonso Johnson (Weather Report). Once again Prasanna draws the best from his bandmates, beginning with the light-hearted "Satyam". The Indian elements on this album are never simply stylistic filigree but an integral part of the whole concept, and Prasanna makes it work beautifully. Highly recommended.

- Glenn Astarita, Jazzreview.com

The Guitar Magic

Music is an art which calls for some form of technical know-how for intelligent appreciation. In practice, most audience in any concert aver that even if they lack knowledge of music techniques they have the taste for good music, be it vocal or instrumental, for music has universal appeal, soothing and therapeutic. They point out that babies can be lulled into sleep by lilting melodies.

The discerning rasikas and others who had gathered to listen to guitar maestro Prasanna's concert at the T.T.D.Sravanamandiram hall, T.Nagar on Friday must have liked the rich and varied fare provided for close to three hours. One was enveloped in sheer joy throughout this duration.

Prasanna, it must be mentioned, has, virtually singlehandedly, brought the electric guitar to international acclaim as a concert instrument for Carnatic music: ditto for mandolin U.Srinivas.

Right from the first Nata Narayani vibrant note on the Guitar (a rare raga) of the not-so-often-performed Dikshitar Kriti (Maha Ganapathe Palayasu maam- aadi) upto the Kalyanavasantham bhajan with which he struck the last string, Prasanna enjoyed his music and entranced his listeners.

Eminent critics have gone on record that western string instruments like mandolin and guitar are not at all suited for the predominantly gamaka oriented carnatic music. Well, Srinivas and Prasanna have proved this assertion false. Srinivas is unbelievably fast and furious. Prasanna relies on medium pace to produce his soft type of mesmerizing music, plucking the strings expertly.

His music has soothing refinement. The Bilahari ' Kanu Kontini' ( Tyagaraja) and the special fourteen raga based Ragamalika of the Dikshithar kriti 'Sri Viswanatham Bhajeham (again a rare composition) clearly evidenced how beautifully he could stretch the boundaries of the guitar and make it transcend sublimally traditions without violating the basic norms. Even die-hards have to concede this point. It is not easy to please Subbudu, the ever wakeful watchman of carnatic music traditions ,but even he has conceded liberally Prasanna's prodigious talents and body of work in his chosen area. Subbudu is a mighty critic both with his pen and the ear - period.

Prasanna is a great connoisseur experimenter. His guitar strings strummed continuously pleasing notes and often made the listener feel that he was also listening to a veena -sitar mandolin concert. The wide range of notes and tonal variety produced that kind of music. .

'Sri Parthasarthe' (suddha dhanyasi -rupakam-Dikshitar) conformed to aesthetics of music in a pristine fashion. The 45 minute widely traversed Bhairavi kriti 'Bala Gopala' (Dikshitar), the main piece of the evenir-g concert, was imaginatively illuminating with its haunting notes that lingered for long. Percussionists Poongulam S.Subramanian (mridangam) and Trivandrum Rajagopal (kanjira) shared vigourously and enthusiastically their expertise with the audience and with each other in the thani encounter.

The Kalyani 'Amma Raavamma' (Kandachapu-Tyagaraja) was a ten fingered blessed charm of evocative classicism. Prasanna, no doubt, takes his music to all-- the hard boiled traditionalist, the ardent rasikas, and, of course, the easy to please layman. That is this young man's charisma, he who has won the life time achievement award, 2003 from the Kanchi Acharya, recently. He just cannot strike a false note ever.



- R. Srinivasan, Indian Express, Chennai, Dec 2003