Interview with Kalyan Pathak, Part One
Our April 13, 2025 program Spirited Away features special guest artist Kalyan Pathak who will perform the tabla on Reena Esmail’s Chamak.
Mr. Pathak describes the tabla:
Tabla is one of the most popular set of drums in North Indian music, Hindustani Sangeet, tradition. Believed to have evolved from ancient Indian percussion instruments like the pakhawaj and mridangam, with its origins often attributed to the 18th century. In the last 100 years Tabla developed in primarily 6 different Schools varying in techniques, repertoire and compositions attributed to each school's specialties and nuances. Today Tabla are played in all types of Indian music from classical to folkloric, Bollywood and fusion to now being popular in even western music genres. I love seeing more and more Tabla involved and incorporated into Western music scores.
We are thrilled to share this 2-part interview with Kalyan Pathak in which he generously shares his fascinating life story, musical influences, and more!
Please tell us a bit about your journey in music and in life. I think of myself as a Linguist of Rhythms because I speak and play many rhythmic traditions and drums from around the world, including Indian, Middle Eastern, West African, Brazilian, Afro-Latin, and American jazz. I have proficiency and fluency in each of these rhythmic languages, having memorized hundreds of rhythmic compositions. More importantly, I love to improvise for hours, building rhythmic stories and compositions.
Growing up in India from age 7 to 13, I took rigorous training in tabla under Ustad Kader Khan and his father Rehman Khan. At age 12, I won the state-level Youth Music Competition as the best instrumentalist. Concurrently, I taught myself western drumset and percussion, playing in bands.
I migrated to Mumbai at 18 to apprentice under Ranjit Barot, studying drumset. I became an in-demand drumset player with top Bollywood composers, singers, and rock-fusion bands, however, the commercial success was not enough for my quest. With diligent studies from books and records, I improved my jazz proficiency and received a tuition waiver/T.A. at Chicago Musical College, Roosevelt University, 1991, where I earned my bachelor's degree in jazz studies with Summa Cum Laude honors.
Being in Chicago to study jazz was a dream come true. Besides college studies, I spent many nights in Chicago jazz jam-sessions scene learning group aesthetic. In Chicago I also studied with drumming masters of West-African, Middle Eastern, Afro-Cuban, and Brazilian cultures as well as jazz drumset virtuosos.
Today, with my inimitable voice, I work in the most diverse musical scenes from jazz, rhythm n blues, soul, classical, and jam band music scenes all over the USA. For me creating art at the collaborative level across the genres as well as across the generations is the biggest motivation.
What have been some of your musical influences? Listening to the diverse collection of records in my professor father’s cherished library—his only prized possessions being books and music—I was introduced to sounds from around the world. At four years old, I asked my parents, “Does Beethoven go to the Beatles’ house, and then do they all visit Louis Armstrong or Lata Mangeshkar to play together?”
To the child in me, no music was greater than another—each was part of a boundless, interconnected world of sound. My parents did not cast the question aside, but, instead, encouraged my curiosity:
“Maybe they do, you can find out when you grow up!”.
This question and their answer became the set up for my diverse musical journey.
My musical influences range from Pandit Kumar Gandharva, Ustad Amir Khan, NiKhil Banerjee in Indian music to Miles, Monk and Mingus in jazz, from Brazilian music to West African music, Soul. Blues and jazz classics to European classical music.
Music and life journeys of Zakir Hussain, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, Lata Mangeshkar, John Lennon and Charles Mingus are my constant sources of inspiration.
Please share your favorite musical memory. One of my most treasured musical memories is playing world percussion with the legendary Dr. Lonnie Smith and his Organ Trio, headlining the 2017 Chicago Jazz Festival at the Pritzker Pavilion.
My setup was a fusion of hand and stick percussion—drawing from the rhythms of India, Brazil, and Cuba—but my role was far more than just playing. It was about deep listening, continuous improvisation, and responding to every dynamic, harmonic, and structural shift in real time. Dr. Lonnie’s music was rooted in many styles of jazz and deep improvisation, and he pushed me to hear the sounds before they even happened—a lesson he shared with me personally.
That night, we left behind all preconceptions, reaching for the "unexpected and the impossible". The energy was electric, and when we finished, 10,000 people roared for an encore.
"Unforgettable"!
Please follow this link to read the second part of our interview with Kalyan Pathak!
SPIRITED AWAY
Sunday, April 13, 2025, 3:00 p.m. Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Evanston, Illinois
Learn more about the Northshore Concert Band at www.northshoreband.org
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