Shakti Hasija’s 117-minute Rock Disco Tabla on Karsh Kale closely follows the musician’s relationship and engagement across genres as a t...
Shakti Hasija’s 117-minute Rock Disco Tabla on Karsh Kale closely follows the musician’s relationship and engagement across genres as a tabla player, drummer, composer-producer and singer.
Hasija’s documentary starts off by looking at Kale’s upbringing in the cultural melting pot of New York and his development as a musician, with influences ranging from hip-hop to Zakir Hussain. Kale could hear “Bhimsen Joshi playing over The Police” and describes his formative years when he would be “falling asleep listening to one thing and waking up to another”.
The film moves on to provide the background on Kale’s albums, concerts, and collaborations with musicians, many of whom are interviewed here: Zakir Hussain, Salim Merchant, Bill Laswell, Anoushka Shankar, Midival Punditz, and Pat Berry and Bob Diskis of Six Degrees Records, which has published multiple Kale albums.
Produced by Kale’s frequent collaborators, the Hindi film composers Salim and Sulaiman Merchant, Rock Disco Tabla won awards Best Film and Best Original Score at the Golden Gate International Film Festival in October. Kale himself has composed the score for the documentary.
It was Kale’s unique story of hailing from a “simple Maharashtrian family in New York” and then moving on to master drums as well as tabla and “be loved by...
