Triveni Quartet Homage to Ustad Zakir Hussain @ London Jazz Festival, Ismaili Centre - Nov. 20

Kala Ramnath (violin), Jayanthi Kumaresh (saraswati veena), Fazal Qureshi (tabla), Anantha R. Krishnan (mridangam).

I always look at the London Jazz Festival with a view to finding three or four concerts over two or three days. This afternoon session was the one that sold it to me this this year, with concerts that night and the night before. It nearly didn't happen as it speedily and unexpectedly (to me) sold out. Days of badgering, hounding and harassment went unnoticed until the day before when I received a message to say they'd asked the festival to make more tickets available.

Zakir Hussain has been a big deal to me since he blew John McLaughlin off the stage the first time Shakti reunited in 1997, fifty years after the partition of India and Pakistan. I've seen him since with another version of Shakti and with Chris Potter and Dave Holland.

I only realised from the sumptuous programme left on each chair that the Triveni Trio including the two ladies were to be his touring band, alongside outside interests, including Charles Lloyd/Julian Lage, Bela Fleck, Holland/Potter and others.

The venue is splendid and the army of smartly dressed volunteers couldn't have been more friendly and helpful. I placed myself at what I thought would be an advantageous position given my sub-standard photographic skills. Polite announcements made it clear delays were due to the guests of honour and I'd seen somebody who looked very much like Zakir. However, while it was confirmed that members of his family were present, the dignitaries turned out to be two princes and their families. I asked a neighbour who they were and was informed they were somebody's son and brother, the assumption being that I would know who the somebody was, but I didn't and didn't feel I could delve further. Incidentally, a lady sat behind me told her companion that her husband had been with Prince William the previous day.

The upshot was that my prime view of the stage was now interrupted by the largest member of the royal party and my attempts at a visual record became snatched discreet snaps of the nearest screen.

As is commonplace at these things, it began with a lengthy exchange between violin and veena (think sitar) culminating in a frantic burst of unison and following rapturous appreciation, it really kicked in with the arrival of the two percussion instruments. Lots of pairing of violin and tabla followed by veena and mridangam followed by violin and veena  and a percussion duel before a frantic race to the end when the crowd goes wild.

Each percussionist was given a showcase, and each just kept growing another pair of hands, or so it would have seemed to anyone with their eyes closed. As a regular attendee at the regular Riverside Ragas at the Glasshouse (formerly the Sage) in Gateshead, this seems to be universally true of Indian tabla players and percussionists. Just when you think they've reached the pinnacle, they add something else without losing anything.

Thirty minutes passed the scheduled finish time somebody passed a note to Kala Ramnath and she announced a short three minute piece, and that was it.

I bumped into a young white British couple at the merch stand who confessed they were very emotional following the experience. I shuddered when I considered that just a day earlier it had looked like I wasn't going to be there. Steve T