Flying Solo

When James Camerons ambitious film,Avatar,released in 2009,critics noticed how the filmmaker had matched the splendid visuals with breathtaking musical grandeur.

Written by Suanshu Khurana

October 15, 2012 03:05 AM IST

4 min read

When James Camerons ambitious film,Avatar,released in 2009,critics noticed how the filmmaker had matched the splendid visuals with breathtaking musical grandeur. Among those who watched and listened to the film carefully was tabla player Aloke Dutta. In his unassuming studio apartment in Los Angeles,the India-born maestro had trained percussionist Michael Fisher who had thumped the tribal rhythm sets for Avatar.

He studied with me for five years,became a very good tabla player and worked in the film. Whenever he needed to compose something or because a tabla part was not written,I helped. Some of those compositions are in my books which Mike,too,learnt, says Dutta. The 59-year-old has also helped Fisher with films such as Memoirs of a Geisha and American Beauty.

Duttas student roster packs heavy star power besides Fisher,several drummers with impressive discographies have climbed the steps to his apartment to learn the tabla. Among these are Danny Carey of Grammy Award-winning band Tool,English drummer Simon Phillips,Roy Wilfred Wooten,a member of the Grammy-winning jazz quartet Bela Fleck and the Flecktones,and American percussionist Terry Bozzio.

Dutta himself began to learn the tabla at 21. He came across the mnemonic syllables of the tabla while growing up in the temple town of Bishnupur in West Bengal. Before he heard the baaj (rhythm),he heard the bols (the vocal interpretations of the tabla). When my father was playing the tabla,there was nobody in front of him; no earthly sentiments,no job promotion or yearly two-dollar salary increase nothing but the formless God himself, recalls Dutta.

His father,a teacher of tabla at Viswa Bharati University in West Bengal,wasnt keen on his son learning the tabla. Dutta only began learning the instrument after he moved to Shantiniketan and,one day,decided to create some rhythms. My father liked my tone and thus began the training, he says.

It took Dutta some time to realise that the tabla was treated only as an accompanying instrument in India and abroad. The idea of solo drumming was largely not there. I played to make somebody elses music beautiful and in return I was relegated to a lower status,received a few rupees for my musical service and inappropriate behaviour from the person I helped to succeed. I knew I had to quit, says Dutta. Thereafter,he began to perform solo and worked to change the approach and structure of tabla playing. He followed the style popularised by percussionist,Ahmedjan Thirakwa,a hundred years ago. Thirakwa was legendary as a soloist tabla player.

In Los Angeles,where he now lives,Dutta is succeeding in his efforts to turn attention to the tabla as a major instrument. When I began to get star drummers as students,I had no idea about their status. I only realised how great they were as drummers when they started asking me critical questions about the aesthetics of Indian drumming, says Dutta.

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Once,Bozzio told him that he could play many mathematically complicated patterns but he believed that Indian drumming was several light years ahead. Aloke answered that too much attention to mathematics would make his music intellectually delightful,but it would also block the free flow of the listeners imagination. If we believe that there is a hidden emotional message in every object,independently as well as collectively,and contemplate on that,then the music will be magical, says Dutta.