Honing harmony

"Cyrus Tata is definitely a talented guitarist, nothing short of being a genius, and, he’s more than capable of delivering the goods when it comes to employing his skills of synchronizing and harmonizing and mixing sounds with different instruments,” noted film director Mrinal Sen was quoted in The Statesman of May 3, 2003. As the lead guitarist of the western segment of the late Ananda Shankar’s East-West fusion music which provided the background score for three of Sen’s films — Chorus, Calcutta 71 and Padatik — Tata had many occasions to impress Sen.

Associated with Ananda Shankar’s orchestra for over a decade, Tata headed its western segment as it toured different parts of India and abroad. "The lead guitarist became so closely involved with Ananda that the latter was obliged to cut his first disc in India with one of the pieces in the album named Cyrus which even today is considered one of the most popular tunes by Ananda Shankar,” reports The Statesman.

"Cyrus was part and parcel of Ananda’s group right from day one. He is a brilliant guitarist and what’s more, a wonderfully humane person to work with. Now he is assisting me in building up the archive of the Ananda Shankar Foundation,” Tanusree Shankar told The Statesman. "Building up the Ananda Shankar Archive is not just a clerical job. Several of his unpublished works are in rough or incomplete form and I put them into proper shape musically before they are preserved. The published works are to be stored keeping in mind the possibility of remixes or new versions of the popular pieces in the future. As I had a close association with Ananda Shankar over many years I am well experienced to judge the direction a piece of music should take and what its final result should sound like,” Tata explained his new responsibilities to Parsiana.

Tata: lead guitarist

Playing the rhythm guitar has been Tata’s speciality, synchronizing it with Indian percussion instruments like the tabla and mridangam while sticking to his style of Western playing. "This technique developed during my long stint with Ananda Shankar’s Fusion Orchestra,” explains Tata. Although he came from a musical family with mother Shirin playing the violin, sisters Dhun and Arnavaz practising on the piano and violin, Tata opted for the guitar because "at that time it was the rage and craze for young people like me. Elvis had it slung over his shoulders and The Beatles...had three guitarists.” Tata gave his first public performance at the Band-Wagon show staged at the New Empire theater at the age of 14. Before he was 20 he had already set up his own band — High Noon — comprising mostly school friends who would perform at the Bengal Club, Calcutta Swimming Club, etc, mentions The Statesman.

Having composed some music independently which he performed with the various beat/rock bands in earlier years, Tata now views himself as a "musician and an arranger/orchestrator. His role as a music arranger is to "pad up and color the main melody lines by adding chords, harmonies and counter melodies (which) requires composition skills. Melodies require additional ornamentation when they are to be performed by an orchestra and the job of an arranger is to distribute the various overlapping harmonies to different instruments.”

When Ananda Shankar started putting heavy emphasis on dance shows Tata left his group and joined singer Usha Uthup where he remained for the next six years. The sudden demise of his father Jamshed in 1985 compelled Tata to take over the reins of the family’s film distribution business which meant neglecting his musical talent. As managing partner of Bilimoria and Lalji he is required to attend several film festivals, to market films in the eastern India region by making appropriate theater bookings or sub-territorial sales and conducting the publicity campaigns for different films besides managing the staff and the office.

As a member of The Calcutta Cine Musicians Association in the special category, Tata has played for the music scores of several Bengali, Oriya, Assamese and Hindi films under different music directors. For the last nearly 10 years Tata has not given any concert performances. The 51-year-old guitarist is presently trying to revive the series of country and western music shows where he was the lead guitarist.

Despite a change in his commitments and priorities Tata has always made himself available to the Zoroastrian community in Calcutta. "When any of the institutions requires any assistance in regard to music they invariably contact me. This could range from organizing a music quiz to contacting fellow musicians as judges for a talent contest. I have provided the music for a tableau on the history of The Calcutta Parsi Club on its 75th year and also for The Calcutta Zoroastrian Stree Mandal on their golden jubilee.”

His most enduring contribution has been to the Calcutta Parsi Amateur Dramatic Club which has been putting up free nataks on Navroz for the last 95 years. As in-charge of music for two decades Tata is responsible for all sound effects (ranging from telephone bells to airplane take-offs). The background music is invariably selected and edited by him to synchronize with the actions on stage.

For over a year now Tata has been teaching the guitar at The Calcutta School of Music where his students include third generation members of the legendary Shankar family.