South by South East in our living room
Legendary Austin fiddler Erik Hokkanen, our friend the tabla player Vikram Patil and the vocal duo Soli and Nisha Kapadia jamming at our house.
Click for larger image.
Vikram is an old family friend and a well-known tabla player from Vadodara who has spent years on the road backing up everyone from Ravi Shankar to Gujarati folk singers. He'd been saying for some time that on one of his trips through Texas he wanted to stop in Austin and meet some local musicians. Finally on this year's tour with Soli and Nisha he got the chance. We racked our brains for someone among our limited contacts with big enough ears to meet Vikram on an equal footing. Finally my co-host got up the nerve to approach Erik, who graciously agreed to come over.
It was perfect! They jammed on gypsy scales, Hindi film songs and the Orange Blossom Special, among other things. We were rapt. To add to the "we are not worthy"-ness of the occasion, Malini got to play Faded Love in duet with Erik and I somehow ended up with a guitar in my hands, strumming along with these guys. I still don't believe it.