COURTESY OF PRASANNA
Prasanna brings the music of South India to Hawaii.
Carnatic cornucopia Prasanna's life has been infused with the music of his homeland, as well as the diverse sounds of rock, jazz, classical and just about anything else that strikes his fancy.
By Gary C. W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.comBut the guitarist is, first and foremost, grounded in the South Indian tradition of Carnatic music, one of two classical strains of the music of India.
"The other is Hindustani, from the north," he said in a phone interview earlier this week from his home in Boston. "That's the music most people are familiar with outside of the country, a tradition that sitar player Ravi Shankar comes from."
While Hindustani music shows Islamic influence due to India's shared northern border, "the southern Carnatic music is in a world of its own," Prasanna said. "It doesn't have the outside influences of the music of the north. For 3,000 years, the ragas and compositions, while sharing the form of Hindustani music, has its own extremely advanced melodic and rhythmic vocabulary.
"But it's also fun to listen to, because it can be very rhythm-driven."
Jazz audiences have been exposed to Carnatic music through the work of English guitarist John McLaughlin, whose pioneering fusion work became heavily Indian-influenced through his work with The Mahavishnu Orchestra and the acoustic-based Shakti bands.
"He was one of the few Westerners to be influenced by Carnatic music, because it suited his style, very percussive and angular," said Prasanna, who started as a rock guitarist, performing semi-professionally at age 13. He became interested in his classical heritage sometime in 1988. At that point, he set aside his professional engineering degree in naval architecture and headed for Boston's prestigious Berklee School of Music, where he got his degree in jazz and classical Western composition.
"Growing up with a rock 'n' roll background, it helped put things in perspective," he said. "Whether I was playing Led Zeppelin, Carnatic music, Delta blues or Spyro Gyra-type fusion jazz, my unconventional background helped me prepare for my career."
What makes Prasanna unconventional as well is that the instrument he played from the beginning, the electric guitar, is one he plays at his Carnatic music concerts.
"The guitar is not even native to Carnatic music; it's the veena, the most sacred instrument in Hindu culture, and one that the sitar was modeled after. The veena remains the key South Indian instrument. While the violin has taken its place over the last 150 years, all of our music is modeled on the human voice. Of the complete system of thousands of compositions and ragas, all of them are meant to be sung."
Prasanna, with Lakshman Mahadevan, will present a evening's worth of classical Carnatic music that Prasanna hopes will "demystify this art." Mahadevan will provide accompaniment on the mridangam (an hourglass-shaped wooden hand drum with two pitched surfaces on either end, the percussive counterpart to the tabla)
"The program will be all about balance," Prasanna said. "We'll play different kinds of ragas, ones with five-beat and seven-beat cycles, and one more contemplative."
Balance is also the operative word for his other musical projects. "I'm very lucky to regularly play in a jazz trio called Quantum with two of the best musicians around, Alphonso Johnson and Airto Moreira. We can play either Carnatic-styled music, Latin, reggae or straight-ahead jazz.
"I've also done guitar duets with Larry Coryell and David Gilmour (not the guy from Pink Floyd, but a New York jazz guitarist who's played with Wayne Shorter).
"Jazz is the common language we all speak. Even though I may play jazz independent of my Carnatic music, it all seems to be converging into a single entity. I was also a sideman for a Senegalese band that did a tour of Finland, and I've also played with other world music ensembles.
"My compositions and performance styles all derive from the Carnatic form, but it's easy to reference into other idioms. That's why I'm currently working on an album that will include trance and trip-hop elements into the Carnatic tradition."
Prasanna's name is Sanskrit for happiness, and he's definitely enjoying sharing his music. "It's been fun, and hopefully the melding of all of these musics in my life is coming second nature to me."
An evening of Indian classical Carnatic music Prasanna and Lakshman Mahadevan
Where: Campus Center Ballroom, University of Hawaii
When: 7 p.m. Sunday
Admission: $15 adult donation; $10 students
Call: 395-1181 or 623-3670
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