Vidya Vandana & Shankar Tucker: ‘Rang Lo’ (a song in the spirit of Holi)

The rough translation of the song:
“This is the story of a girl, restless in thought, who wants to take the road less traveled. A girl who refuses to let her feet touch the ground and desires independence from the path that was chosen for her. She packs her belongings and wants to fly, away from her constraints and bonds. She wants to let her thoughts fly with her through a path like the one a kite takes in the wind. On her journey, she sees the world shimmering with color and all things living, dancing and singing to the tune of freedom.”

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Maati Baani, funky mingling of Hindustani & Folk

Maati Baani is a group from India centred around Nirali Kartik, a Hindustani classical trained singer. As stated on Facebook Maati Baani is “a world music band combining elements of Hindustani Classical with various styles of Folk music and New age sounds; we are like mad people set loose!! No rules, no boundaries, we simply create the sound that we love to hear with our different styles of music.” Influences they mention are: Michael Jackson, Pt. Jasraj, A.R. Rahman, Shankar Tucker, Indian Ocean, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Sting, Ustad Rashid Khan, Jack Johnson, and Coldplay. The band has done some exciting and succesful collaborations with a.o. American clarinet player Shankar Tucker and with folk singer Mooralala Marwada. I just like to add one word to characterize Maati Baani: Fun! 🙂




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Shankar Tucker conquers a world audience via YouTube

I’ve been tracking down his uploads ever since I noticed his presence on YouTube early this year. Shankar Tucker is quite a phenomenal guy who has conquered a world audience by storm via his YouTubechannel in less than a year.


One of Shankar Tucker’s videos: Sapnon se Bhare Naina, with singer Rohini Ravada

Shankar Tucker plays the clarinet and a handful of other instruments and is interested in Indian Classical music and Indian folk music traditions. He incorporates these different styles with elements of Jazz, Electronic, Classical and Pop in his compositions. He spends a lot of time in India, where he studies Hindustani music on clarinet with flute-bansuri player Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia. So far Shankar Tucker’s channel has featured collaborations with a bunch of great singers, such as Mahesh Vinayakram, Aditya Rao, Rohan Kymal, Vidya and Vandana Iyer and Nirali Kartik.
Here’s a link to the Hindustan Times writing about him in September 2011, a.o. things saying: “(..) a student of flautist Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia at the Brindaban Gurukul in Mumbai, he has picked the clarinet over flute”. And then, so funny what follows: “(..) he disclosed in an interview to an Indian Express that his guru doesn’t even know about his fusion experiments.” :))

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