Alex Dodd : CD of the week
If, like me, you’re the kind of person who likes drifting into the realm of nod to strains of sweet music conjuring images of women in fuschia muslin and marble palaces on Indian lakes, Deepak Ram is the maestro you’ve been looking for. A pupil of the great Hariprasad Chaurasia, the man is a masterful exponent of bansuri – the Indian flute. Although he is very much the global man, Ram is probably best known in these parts for his frequent collaborations with pianist and composer, Darius Brubeck.
In 1993 they recorded a live album, Gathering Forces II, together (also featuring Airto Moreira). That same year, he joined the seminal South African three- piece, Tananas, did the local gig circuit and recorded the album, Orchestra Mundo.
His fifth album, Flute for Thought (Melt 2000), features a selection of pieces written over the past decade, including extracts and themes from larger compositions written for Western classical and jazz ensembles, all using elements of Indian music in inventive and enticing ways.
Although he now lives in London, Ram was born in Lenasia, South Africa, in 1960 and raised on the sounds of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, as well as Ravi Shankar and Hindi film music blowing around the family home.
Flute for Thought is clearly a product of this hybrid growth pool, starting off all jazzy and upbeat, then twisting and furling like a lost kite into the slower, more mesmeric pieces.
By the end of it you’re all ether – at one with the room and swooning like a love-sick atom. Just call it peace, Deepak-style.