Raga Malkauns

As a listener who prefers "alap" (nice & slow) to "gat" (too darn fast)...I'm pleased to report that track 4 of this CD, an alap, has its time listed as 9:54, when in fact the time is 19:54, ten whole minutes longer than indicated. Since I generally tend to program for alap tracks over gat tracks, this is a happy typo!

For someone who's been fed on a steady diet of Ravi Shankar, Nikhil Banerjee and Vilayat Khan, the "popular Sitar players", Netai Bose is a true revelation. Malkauns is a Raga that is so overperformed with so many insipid versions that you could cringe at the thought of another performance of it but Netai Bose has singlehandedly rescued my flagging confidence in discovering authentic music. In the hands of Netai Bose, Raga Malkauns truly comes alive. From the very first few notes that he plays, you can tell that you are in for a real delight.Netai Bose plays in the Dhrupad-based Seni tradition of his Guru the late Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan. Among the other students of his master that I know: Debu Chowdhury and Steven Landsberg, Netai Bose comes closest to his master (You can hear clips of Mushtaq Ali Khan's music on Steven Landsberg's website). Debu Chowdhury tends to be very idiosyncratic and Steven Landsberg plays a very difficult instrument and in my opinion is not in the same league as the others yet. Netai Bose however, is a true accomplished master whose sincerity and adherence to tradition are unquestionable. The Alaap is so meticulously structured and lucid in it's presentation and development that you could easily imagine that you are listening to a Veena and not a Sitar at all. At the same time, the melodic aspect of the Raga is so well presented in the Gats that any lay listener can appreciate the music.This is a listeners delight in every single aspect. Buy it just for the opening notes of Raga Malkauns!