Trilok Gurtu’s roots are planted in India. With his grandfather a noted sitar player, his mother a renowned Indian classical singer, Trilok had inherited the talent and became infected with music and a passion for it as a child. He began playing the tabla (Indian lap drums) at age five and while his friends were outside playing, he was practicing the intricate finger movements. As a confident teen Gurtu wanted to be the Jimi Hendrix of the tabla.

His early mastery of the improvisational Indian classical form was soon his passage to a new musical land. Gurtu feels at home in the jazz idiom, and the Western world has welcomed his brilliance on the Tabla. As a composer he has taken his classical Indian roots and infused modern jazz, funk, rock and world influences to create his unique sound. His rhythms bounce, saunter blurring time and space, casting the exotic musical textures in diaphanous drapes and folds that stun the imagination. " I see my role as showing how the great musical tradition in India has spread throughout the world. Indian music can be fused with anything because 85 percent of it is improvised.” Gurtu said at a recent interview.

In his early years, Gurtu toured with the legendary trumpeter Don Cherry. He then met, John McLaughlin, leader of the The Mahavishnu Orchestra and cut two albums with him. Trilok was the featured soloist on The John McLaughlin Trio’s world tour. A reviewer for The Guardian, London said, “When John and Trilok trade licks the audience is inevitably drawn to such a climax that encore follows encore.” Trilok then worked extensively recording and touring with such jazz giants and like-minded musicians as Joe Zawinul and Pat Metheny.

Five-time Downbeat Poll Winner for Best Percussionist, Trilok Gurtu will be performing a variety of music from his recordings and will also feature new music from his release due out this summer. In declaring his global musical vision, Gurtu says, “We make bridges, not barriers. This is what the world requires.” His new CD, Broken Rhythms is out in April in Europe with a plan for release in the U.S. this summer 2004.

The Trilok Gurtu Band will perform, Sunday, April 4 at 8 p.m. in Bowker Auditorium.