Suphala - New York - based tabla player and composer

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a small concert by Suphala at a non-descript venue in NYC called the STONE

I had purchased her last CD called, "The Now" (rel. May 2005) which has succumbed to her latest release called, "Blueprint" (rel. July, 10th 2007). The new album walks the line of Laswell proportions. If you don't know who Bill Laswell is, please check him out, but it may be a bit of a feat since the guys churns out albums like there is no tomorrow. Suphala, bravely manages to compose her tablas with subtle modern beats, and fuse a modern classical complexity. This shouldn't be surprising considering her mentors being the late Ustad Allarakha and Ustad Zakir Hussain. Zakir Hussain (the son of Ustad Allarakha who toured with Ravi Shankar and the Beatles) could be dubbed a father of this classical fusion with his album called, "Making Music", which was released in December 1986!

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Suphala's concern was more like a relaxed jam session where she was assisted by a Violinist, Mazz Swift, a Percussionist, Shree Shyam Das who played two Dhol like drums called the Khol and Manipuri Pung, and an Ipod with beats. Her conduction of the jam session was pleasingly humble. She shared the limelight with her fellow musicians and allowed them to do their thing. Mazz's violin was compelling, almost as if she had been mentored by Subramaniam or Phillip Glass.

I would recommend people to check out Suphala and her work SUPHALA Go see her live and buy Blueprint!