Niladri Kumar – Sitar Gaze (Times Music, 2005)
Pushing the frontiers of Indian classical music, this is an excellent album featuring sitar virtuoso Niladri Kumar, son of sitar maestro Pandit Kartick Kumar. All eight tracks are beautiful; our picks include the title track, as well as two others called Lovers Dream and Sensuous.
Rounding off the full and rich sitar sound are Tejendra Narayan Majumdar on sarod, Rakesh Chaurasia on flute, Ankur Chatterjee on guitar, Vijay Prakash on vocals and Madhav Pawar on Pakhawaj. The percussion work is slick and the album is very well produced. It would also make a great gift, so get an extra copy or two when you buy your own.
Buy Sitar Gaze
Author: Madanmohan Rao
Madanmohan Rao is an author and media consultant from Bangalore, and global correspondent for world music and jazz for World Music Central and Jazzuality. He has written over 15 books on media, management and culture, and is research director for YourStory Media. Madan was formerly World Music Editor at Rave magazine and RJ at WorldSpace, and can be followed on Twitter at @MadanRao.
