Majumdar, Tejendra Narayan (Sarod)
Raga Ahir Bhairav
Shubhankar Banerjee (Tabla) Live Concert, Germany 1999.
ID: PCD 9905
Tejendra Narayan Majumdar was a student of Ustad Bahadur Khan. Since his teachers death he was taught by the legendary Ali Akbar Khan. His playing is of exiting virtuosity and dynamic and filled with total commitment to the music. Tejendra Narayan Majumdar's disc has great appeal, if only because the sensitive and highly inventive playing reminds us of the style of his incomparable guru, Ali Akbar Khan, which has virtually been the norm for the past 30 years. Ahir Bhairava, the raga chosen (for an elaborate rendition filling the whole disc) is likely to sound exotic and beguiling to Western ears. Although the performance follows the traditional pattern of alap, jor, jhala, followed by a couple of compositions with tabla accompaniment, there is one surprise: The second gat is set to the ten-beat Jhaptal, taken at a much faster speed than usual and retaining the chosen tala right up to the climatic end of the performance. It is very unusual to use this tala thus, instead of playing the final gat in Teental or perhaps Ektal. - Neil Sorrell, in: Songlines (Spring 2000)
Tejendra Narayan Majumdar (* 1961) is a pupil of Bahadur Khan. He is one of the most popular and celebrated contemporary classical sarod players.