R A V E

  India. 4th July 2005

The first time we heard about guitar innovator Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya's new album Calcutta Slide Guitars, it was on the Top 10 charts of the UK world music magazine, Songlines. Bhattacharya, who picked up lessons on the Maehar style of playing from Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra and honed his vocal skills with Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, told us he was struck by the apparent lack of improvisation in most classical performances he got to see. That in turn inspired him to invent three unique guitars, What sets him apart is his bringing in '10 different styles of plying, and 15 different finger-picking combinations and gliding techniques, needed to play raags better on a slide guitar. Bhattacharya has delved into styles such as flamenco for inspiration, but he assures us, his intention is solely to update the beauty of raag renditions, to stretch the ability of a guitar, and to preserve the tradition of raags: "Guitar is no more a Western instrument in my hand - it is a voice of my own country, people and music ... (it is) completely Bharatiya."