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by Scott Rollins

Kofi and Shankarlal met in Athens, Greece at the end of October 1997. Both had been invited to play at a four day drum festival in the capital city and it was not long before the two of them hit it off, rhythmically and personally.
The second day in town they played together in a small club called Asande, after hours. Kofi had come to pay his respects after having given a workshop to Greek percussion students. Shankarlal was playing with two local Greek musicians that evening and Spyros went home to get Kofi a darubuka drum so that Kofi could join in. Right then and there with a small drum he and Shankarlal stole the show and began a musical conversation that enthralled all present.

In the wee hours as we sat around the table dining on sumptuous dishes our Greek hosts laid before us, the duo swapped stories of rhythm and how it was "all over them".
By the time the night of their concert had rolled around they had discovered each had been in their respective native countries and been exposed to the power and subtleties of one another's traditions. On the night itself each played a solo set before coming together on stage at first with Nikos Touliatos, the Greek drummer and teacher who had organized the festival. He played trap drums on a number with them before Kofi and Shankarlal continued as a duo. The Gnossos Theatre was jumping to their unique sound of djembe and tabla and the musical friendship was sealed.

The power of their music was recognized immediately by Yorgos Trantalidis, Greece's premiere jazz drummer and a pioneer for his idiom in his native country. Yorgos kindly offered studio time in his own studio in between gigs and for the third time in as many days Kofi and Shankar Lal sat down to explore their rhythmical idioms. Yorgos then invited them to sit in on a track he had composed and recorded with Hungarian ace sax player Tony Lakatos, with whom Kofi had played with in Dutch jazz pianist Jasper van 't Hof's band. Small world!

The 25th of April 1998 saw them perform in Utrecht's RASA Theatre. On August 26, 1998 the duo performed in a circus tent for a young enthusastic audience in the The Lowlands Festival in Dronten in the Netherlands. The duo opened the 1999/2000 world music season of the Theatre Zuidplein in Rotterdam on September 25th and play in the Amsterdam club, Winston Kingdom on 26 September.
A cd of their live and studio recordings is in the making with the working title: A CONVERSTATION FOR TWO ELEPHANTS.

(Amsterdam, November 1999)

Biography and Discography Shankarlal

Performance Zuidpleintheater Rotterdam

Zuidpleintheater

Biography and Discography Shankarlal