In a predominantly Flute Mali channel, it would be amiss to not consider how Mali’s legacies are being passed on to the current generation. Flute Jayant is now the most sought-after carnatic flautist and is certainly a worthy candidate for taking over Mali’s mantle. For this purpose, I am uploading a recent house concert of his. A unique feature of this concert was the decision was made to make the concert completely mic-less. No electronic manipulation here and you can hear the natural tones of all the instruments.

In his formative years commencing from the time he was a toddler, Flute Jayant had been feeding on a musical diet of Mali recordings, not through parental compulsion but through his own magnetic properties. His grandfather, the late Vidwan TS Sankaran, perhaps Mali’s closest disciple, recognized the obvious talent early and started being Jayant’s mentor and coach. Like Mali, Jayant had his first public performance at age 7.

Is Jayant the annointed flutist to carry forward Flute Mali’s legacies? Let us be clear. Only certain things are legacy-fiable. Such characteristics such as innate musical ability, creativity and personality traits such as level of emotiions (which invariable have an impact on the music displayed) are NOT legacy-fiable. The areas that ARE legacy-fiable are approaches taken and certain technicalities.
Jayant is certainly following Flute Mali’s footsteps in the following ways:

1. Absolute insistence on being sruthi-suddham (something even many senior flautists find difficult).
2. Importance given to developing a unique and deep tone. Jayant uses flutes that are heavier with thicker walls than most and has strived very hard to develop a deep tone that is now his own.
3. A penchant and aptitude for creating intricate rythmic patterns.
4. Abundant use of cross-fingering techniques.
5. Inserting, now and then, some wonderful surprise phrases that fits perfectly with the overall theme. This shows a Mali-like passion for creating new things.
6. A passion that drives an immense amount of hard work and practice. Even someone absurdly gifted such as Mali had to do the hard yards. As an illustration, 10 years ago Jayant was scheduled to perform at an auditorium. The night before, I had played for him an old Mali recording. It was a kAmbOdhi rAgam that only lasted a little over three minutes as it was contained in one side of an old 78rpm record. Jayant was compleley awe-struck by the depth of that kAmbOdhi- he had not heard this recording before. You can find that kAmbOdhi here:
[ Ссылка ]. He immediately downloaded a copy onto his smart phone and spent most of the sleeping hours repeatedly listening to it. You can guess what rAgam was the main piece during the performance the next day.

To add to these, Jayant has also skillfully adopted the requirements of modern day audience and pays importance to maintaining a good rapport with the audience.

I have to conclude that JA Jayanth seems destined to be the one to carry Mali’s baton forward.

свернуть