On a stage covered with flowers, Ustad Khansahib -- Maestro Ali Akhbar Khan
-- spoke tonight in San Francisco with warmth and reverence of his father,
who trained him 72 years ago.

"I was five," Khansahib said, "and sometimes he beat me on stage to teach
me." He glanced over at his youngest son on the stage the next to him,
17-year-old Alam Khan, and a nervous laughter spread around the Palace of
Fine Arts.  Alam showed a half smile, Khansahib grinned, and said:  "I
wouldn't do that."

There followed a tremendous concert, an unforgettable *musical* event,
pushing historical significance in the background.  (This extraordinary
family of artists goes back to Mian Tansen, a 16th century musician in the
court of Emperor Akbar.  Khansahib's father, Allauddin Khan, was believed
to be 110 when he died in 1972, three generations gracing three centuries:
the last, the current and the next one, just six months away.)

Khanshahib's gleaming 25-string sarode speaks, whispers, wails, cries,
laughs, exults.  In music written by and handed down to him by his father,
he cast a spell over the hall, simultaneously contemplative and passionate,
with a quiet tempo that picks up, only to be held back again, then it takes
off on a flight of sound, the melody soaring ever higher, the pulsating
tempo going into a frentic crescendo and release.

Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri's tabla connects the two sarodes, provides a
percussive background, leading and following the strings.

With the music in the foreground, there is a fascinating minimalist theater
unfolding on the stage as well, the "typical American" teenage son (of
great technique and greater promise) not looking at the audience or anybody
in particular, the father cueing him, urging him on, challenging him with
almost imperceptible motions.  And then it happens and the two Khans,
separated by 60 years and two cultures, meet in the virtuoso climax of the
music to cheers and a standing ovation.

There are those who distinguish between Western classical music and the
music of India, China, etc.  If you heard Khansahib's concert tonight,
you would not try to separate what is one and the same.

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