Teachers of Tapan Bhattacharya

-Late PANDIT ASUTOSH BHATTACHARYA-

He was born on 17 March 1917, the son and grandson of a family of famous Bengali doctors specialising in Ayurvedic medicine. From childhood, he showed a special interest in percussion instruments, so at the age of eight, he began his musical training on the pakhawaj, a percussion instrument from southern India. A few years later, he heard Ustad Kanthe Maharaj, one of the great tabla players of Benares Gharana, in concert and decided he wanted to learn tabla with him. In 1938, at the age of 21, his great skill as a tabla player began to be recognised, and he made his first performance as an accompanist to the great master Ustad Allaudin Khan, known as ‘the grandfather of modern Indian classical music’ and known in the West as the guru of Pt. Ravi Shankar (with whom Kaviraj was a schoolmate), as well as Ali Akbar Khan (Allaudin’s son) and Nikhil Banerjee.

Following in the footsteps of family tradition, he travelled to Delhi to study Ayurvedic medicine at the Ayurvedic College for five years.

While attending classes, studying and doing practical work at his teacher’s clinic, he continues his tabla practice, gives classes on Sundays, and performs in concerts and on All India Radio with Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan and Vilayat Khan, among others…

After completing his studies, he returned to Varanasi, where he opened his own medical practice. There he continued to deepen his knowledge of tabla with his Guru, practising around six hours a day, as well as continuing to give concerts and teach tabla to a large number of disciples.

One of his beliefs is that music should be a divine experience, which can only arise after years of intense practice and devotion. Music should be like an offering to God, and inspiration must be allowed to arise spontaneously, which can only happen when one is completely free and in communion with one’s instrument, thanks to intensive practice and intense devotion. He often comments that contemporary Indian classical music is very ostentatious, fast and difficult, but lacks the depth of yesteryear…

-Late PANDIT SHANKAR GHOSE-

Hailed as one of the all-time greats of Indian Classical Music, Pandit Shankar Ghosh has, for more than four decades now, regaled audiences all over the world with his unique “baaj” of Tabla playing. Universally regarded as an innovative genius, he has, besides, performing with the greatest of master musicians of this century, added a whole new dimension to the art of solo Tabla playing. His many compositions have become an intrinsic part of classical Tabla playing.

Pandit Shankar Ghosh trained mainly with the great Guru of the Tabla Pandit Gyan Prakash Ghosh. His other teachers included Ustad Feroz Khan, Pandit Anath Nath Bose and Pandit Sudarshan Adhikari.
Pandit Ghosh’s illustrious career has had many highlighted moments. One such moment, which marked a major movement in his musical life, was when; in 1962 he visited the United States of America with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. From then onwards, for the next ten years he was to experiment with the percussion form with a variety of great musicians in the west. All the while, as he toured with Ali Akbarji, he also musically joined hands with immortal bands like the “Grateful Deads”(whose drummer Mickey Hart was Shankarji’s student) and performed with the renowned saxophonist John Handy. In fact it was during this phase that the germ to create the all-drum orchestra Music of the Drums (later re-christened as the Calcutta Drum Orchestra) took seed in his mind.

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The concept of an all drum orchestra was unique in itself though especially Pandit Gyan Prakash Ghosh had previously conducted before, experiments with drums. However, the form was the ensemble and not the orchestra. The orchestral dimension was brought in by Shankarji who created such a wonder that his orchestra held audiences mesmerised for three hours, drum-struck in the world woven by the master percussionist. Memorable performances of the orchestra were the 1982 ASIAD finale and the performance at the Royal Albert Hall, London for the BBC PROMS 100th year celebrations.

Listing the great artistes that Shankarji has accompanied over the last forty odd years would read like a who’s who list of the Indian Classical Music world. It would be enough to say that there was no area of our music, be it instrumental, vocal or dance that Shankarji did not excel in and which was not enriched by his keen sense of artistry.

Throughout his career he has been bestowed with awards galore. The latest to hold pride of place are the ITC award and the Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan award.

Shankarji has innumerable recordings available worldwide. Of late he has ventured into composing music for stage productions as well as theme albums.

Finally, Shankarji has secured a place for himself among the greatest Guru’s of all time through his wide influence as a teacher of Tabla all over the world. This is amply exampled by the sheer number of students of his that are top rung tabaliyas today.