Art & Entertainment

One Grateful, The Other Dead

An Indian guitarist wins acclaim for an album he cut with his idol, the legendary Jerry Garcia, in his last days

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One Grateful, The Other Dead
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IT was just another day at work for Sanjay Mishra, thirtysomething classical guitarist and Greenpeace employee in Washington, when filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia walked into his office to research toxic pollution. She introduced the portly, shaggy man by her side merely as husband Jerry. Mishra, whose own long hair is a throwback to the mid-’70s when he jammed with his band Mahamaya in Calcutta, paled as he realised he was shaking hands with an idol whose songs he used to play to grooving ‘Deadhead’ collegiates on the faraway banks of the Hooghly: Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead.

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"All I said was, of course, I know who you are," recalls Mishra. "I mumbled that I played a bit of music myself. I thought, that’s the kind of thing he probably hears a million times a day." It was only after Mishra supplied the Garcias—long-time Greenpeace supporters—with enough dope on toxic wastes that the magic of the moment crept up on him. The psychedelic-rock luminary from California whose guitar riffs he had emulated all those years ago was right here in front of him, about to leave.

"I felt, here’s this guy I’ve admired so long—I’ve got to show my appreciation. I have to give him something." So Mishra handed Garcia "a small thing I did"—a copy of his first CD, The Crossing. Deborah called up the next day and said Jerry had listened to it all day in his car and was keen to speak to him. "He gets on the phone and says—‘man, that was an incredible record’."

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Mishra was a bit diffident but Garcia "insisted I call him back the next day". He did—and had a long chat. "I talked about my life as a musician in the US and how difficult it was. He was surprised I couldn’t get The Crossing reviewed substantially and promised to call up the music media and personally introduce it. He asked me whether I had any projects. I told him about the new CD I was working on, Blue Incantation."

Mishra, who came to the US to study classical guitar at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, armed with a Bachelor’s in Political Science from St. Xavier’s, Calcutta, tentatively invited Garcia to honour him by sitting in on the recording sessions. "He went a step further and said he’d like to play on the disc. He was very candid—said I would have to arrange everything, so he could only come in with his guitar. ‘Three hours is all I’m good for,’ he told me."

"Throughout our work, Jerry kept saying, ‘look, I don’t normally do this sort of thing.’ Then finally, one day, I asked him, why are you doing it?" says Mishra. "Because I’ve been waiting a long time to hear something like this," Garcia replied.

Garcia offered studio time at The Grateful Dead’s San Rafael Club Front studio in December 1994 and Blue Incantation was born. Eight months later, Garcia—the longest-playing rock daddy of ’em all—was dead. Few realised that Blue Incantation not only features Garcia in one of his last known recordings but has some of his most unconventional guitar passages, in a free-flowing form, rather, non-form.

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"Every time I asked him what he liked about my music, he would laugh and say, ‘I’m not gonna tell you and you know why? That would only influence you and you’d stick to doing just those things. Continue doing it—it’s brilliant,’" recalls Mishra.

What is Mishra’s music all about? Is it the dreaded ‘fusion’? Not quite. Blue Incantation is a hard to slot melange of rock, jazz, fla-menco, classical—Mishra plucks on his classical guitar, on three tracks Garcia plays haunting, wailing passages, tabla provides muted rhythms and the random rising spirals of ragas sung by a female voice subtly flavour some tracks. And all the while, guitars weep gentle, muted elegies for lost loves, life and the passing monsoon. The album, rated by Spin among 1995’s top ten, is non-conformist, unpretentious world music.

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Garcia hoped to fulfill a long-standing dream to visit India and was enthusiastic about accompanying Mishra on his holiday in March 1996. His death has left a deeply obliged Mishra rather sad. "It’s all thanks to Garcia for any attention I’ve got. I’m incredibly, incredibly grateful."

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