Chatur Lal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chatur Lal (born in Udaipur in 1925, died in 1965) was a tabla maestro, born into a musical family in Rajasthan, India. He was a disciple of Haji Mohammed Khan of the Delhi gharānā or school of tabla playing.

Pandit Lal was one of the musicians who introduced audiences in the West to Hindustani classical music. Flying to Europe in 1955, and then on to the United States, Pandit Lal later accompanied Pandit Ravi Shankar on his first trips to the USA. Their collaboration produced a number of classic LPs, as well as inspiring great interest amongst Western audiences and musicians in this ancient but to them rather obscure music. He worked, too, as composer on the 1957 animated short film A Chairy Tale.

He died at the age of 40, at the height of his powers. His legacy is maintained by the Pandit Chatur Lal Memorial Society.