Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Asha Bhosle

This was my first concert at Disney Hall. It feels as though you are sitting inside a big elephant. The seating is well-arranged, and the design is beautiful - with a spectacular centerpiece organ.
I was impressed by Asha Bhosle's performance, in her 75th year. Late-life (TV) performances by singers such as, say, Rosemary Clooney seemed to me very belabored. Age (and weight) played heavy on the voice. I can't claim to be an astute judge of the gradients of quality in Indian music, but to me her performance was still fresh, with the high trill and twang still intact. I don't have the "now" and "then" tracks side-by-side to compare, but they were still quite soprano, which is impressive to me, knowing that most singers take their songs down an octave as they age.
The concert as a whole was somewhat dragged down by her "co-host", Amit Kumar, who spent entirely too much time (mostly in Hindi) extolling his late father, who often performed with Ms. Bhosle. It was a lovely gesture that the son could perform duets with her, but his solos were nowhere near the quality of the primary performer (white-jacket synth-fest), and the manner in which he delivered the long-winded comments that I could make out reminded me of a Singapore phrase: "He think he very can." While his solo segments made the concert drag (Lots of honkies left early, but I suppose much of the audience didn't have issue, since Bollywood flicks themselves tend to be four hours), he was quite adequate in his duet performances. And Asha Bhosle was stellar. Rated 2.

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