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Trilok Gurtu (India)
Song : Brindavan Dance
Album : Remembrance (Universal Music)
Visit : worldmusicnet & universalmusicworld
Elsewhere in BBCi : CD Review
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Third time lucky, as they say! Uniquely, Trilok Gurtu has been nominated every year the BBC Radio 3 World Music Awards have been held, and though he has yet to win one, it's not as if he hasn't been recognised elsewhere. Carlton Television and Drum magazine have both awarded him prizes and he's won Downbeat's Critics Poll a staggering five times.
Gurtu was pioneering fusions between Indian music, rock, jazz and even African styles long before contemporary British Asian artists like Nitin Sawhney, Asian Dub Foundation and Talvin Singh began to do similar things in the 1990s, and has been a major influence on their music and global vision. "We make bridges, not barriers," he says. "That is what the world requires."
He grew up surrounded by music in Mumbai during the 1950s, when it was known as Bombay. His grandfather played the sitar and his mother Shobha Gurtu is still popular as a singer of a light classical Hindustani (North Indian) style called 'thumri'. They fostered his natural desire to join in family jam sessions and he began to play percussion instruments from the age of six.
As a teenager, he was soon drawn to foreign sounds and claims to have wanted to play the tablas like Jimi Hendrix played the guitar. After travelling in Europe for two years, he returned to Bombay to work as a professional musician on Bollywood soundtracks. During the '80s and '90s Gurtu lived and worked in Europe and the US, playing and recording with a wide range of world, jazz, fusion and even classical musicians.
He began making solo albums in 1986, and entered a new phase at the turn of the century, when the African Fantasy album took him away from jazz and towards his most fully realised fusion of African and Indian sounds. In 2001 The Beat Of Love, extended the African connection, but the music came full circle with Remembrance (2002) - the first made completely in India with Indian musicians. His most recent release is the remix project Izzat - Respect.
 Read other peoples comments
GREAT
USS Trilok Gurtu and his band participated in annual Kaunas Jazz music festival (Lithuani) in May, 2003 and it was the first time I heard him - was amazed.. His music is really something special.
Renata innovative and exciting work from a guy with a great track record.
steve todd
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