Khyal Creed

Very, very occasionally, a voice of such outstanding quality comes along, it demands Immediate attention. When that voice also delivers a richness of ideas, the temptation to go into hyperbolic overdrive is maddening. Let’ s take six deep breaths and say only that Shweta Jhaveri’ s voice is very, very special indeed. Hers is the sort of music that feels as natural as breathing in and out, heady like a hit of extra oxygen in the bloodstream. When the listener feels as if particular pieces of music have always been in their life, that is a very good sign. To A Beloved on her latest album Anahita is pure seduction. She sets her composition in Raga Bageshree with its attendant mood of longing.For a more traditionally styled performance, take Heart of Darkness from the film Dance of The Wind, thoughtfully included on Navras’s 1997 soundtrack album. Her performance is textbook traditional.

Certainly,if an East - West fusion project of any note based on khyal predates hers, nobady seems to recall it. “l want to present aesthetic and peaceful music, shweta jhaveri observes.“ Interestingly. given the expressiveness of her voice, it has often been sonorities, not style, that have left their mark. “Apart from being influenced by vocalists in terms of vocal techniques, I’ve been very much influenced by certain voices. Like Reshma she’s a Pakistani gypsy singer - and Begum Akhtar. I’m not talking about the style, I’m talking about the voices. “Vocalists whose singing definitely has influenced her, however, include Kishori Amonkar ( “I think she’s the Queen “), Amir khan and Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. Ella Fitzgerald and Thelonious Monk are western musicians whose work she admires.

She would study with Khandekar for about 15 years.Later she would study with the Bombay based vocalist Pandit Jasraj as well as travel with him as his accompanist between 1987 to 1991.In 1987, it led to her being invited 'to visit the Ali Akbar Khan College as a guest artist' in successive years to do Summer workshops.They (Ravi Shanker & AliAkbar Khan) opened a new path for us,the younger musicians,she says of AliAkbar Khan,who remains a major source of inspiration for her.

She made her debut commercial recording, Prathama, in 1990 at the age of 24. “ The first record was made in Ahmedabad, “ she recalls. “ There’s a record company called Sursagar, which means ‘Ocean of Notes’.That was my first commercial recording of khyal music.” A trickle of albums followed for various labels. In Various Moods, released by the Delaware-based Biswas label in 1995, for example, presents a mixed repertoire of khyal, bhajan [Hindu devotional hymn] and a folk tune composed by her. “ All the others [apart from Anahita] are very traditional albums, ”she says. Intuition, the record company, approached her with an idea after a concert in the San Francisco Bay area. Her decision to accept the challenge may have taken only moments to consider but, as she has pointed out, the ideas and had been cooking for years and the compositions had come together gradually, A Nosy Dawn, She remembers, was originally written in another raga but the setting did not gel. In the early summer of 1998, she revisited the piece and fitted it to the morning rag Lalit. Of the six pieces, only the tongue-twisting Amidst A Mist deviates from the khyal path. “It just happened. The words are closer to what is called a tarana [a rhythmic syllable – based song]. It’s actually not a tarana. It’s very slow. It’s composed in a very different mood, because a tarana is usually faster than what I’ve sung it in. When I was composing it, I thought about putting words in it. I couldn’t do that, so I just presented the composition as it is. It’s still connected to traditional Indian music in the sense that it has the right kind of ‘words’, what we call ‘tarana words’ No meaningful words. Structurally it is closer to Khyal.”

Practically speaking, she had to adapt her repertoire. “I’ve only sung shorter, briefer khyals [literally ‘little khyals’, known for their faster tempo and agility]. The musicians who accompany her on Anahita are violinist Jenny Scheinman, guitarist/dobro player Will Bernard, bassist Bill Douglass and kit drummer and percussionist Jim kassis. The instrumentation complements her vocal range superbly. “I’d loved violin from the beginning so I was sure that I wanted to do something with violin. I love the sound of cello as well but which I haven’t been able to use. We met there in California. These musicians weren’t aware of traditional ragas, so we had five to six sessions. I sang each raga and then we tried to follow each other. Over those sessions I taught them a little bit about Indian raga music. and suddenly we clicked. I loved the way they accompanied and were playing.”

“What I tried to do. “ she continues, “was try to put Hindi lyrics within mainly [a taal or rhythm cycle of] 16 beats. I’m not calling it teentaal because it’s not really traditional teentaal as it’s played. Nor have e used tabla or Indian percussion. I don’t know if I’m describing it correctly but I call it an ‘image’ of 16 beats. I’ve tried to use various techniques, like taans [phrases, an arpeggio would be western example], sargams [solfeggio compositions in different ragas in various tempos used as study and practice exercises] and a little bit of alap [a ragas mood-setting introductory movement]. Then bol taan [a type of musical figure] and gamak [grace note or ornament]. I’ve also tried to incorporate meend [portamento-like slide between notes] which is a very important melodic technique: it’s like gliding.” Anahita, Shweta concludes, means something very new in Sanskrit.