Alam Khan (Son Of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan) Releases "Shades Of Sarode" Nov 8

San Rafael, CA (Top40 Charts/ Pres Pak Public Relations) Alam Khan's instrumental Classical Indian CD, Shades of Sarode, on family owned Alam Madina Music Productions (AMMP) Mid Heaven on November 8 comes on the heels of the International release of the biography feature Play Like a Lion: The Legacy of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, a film that explores Alam's relationship with his father Ali Akbar Khan as well as his father's relationship to the history of music. With the release of his debut CD Alam Khan breathes new life into an enduring legacy. "Making Shades of Sarode was my attempt at playing shorter, improvised pieces of Indian classical music on Sarode. A raga's duration can usually last up to an hour or longer when played in it's entirety. There are many sections to a performance which can be greatly elaborated upon, but for this album I chose to present the listener with more ragas and different moods to experience in a shorter amount of time.

Alam's new release continues his father's exploration of Classical Indian pieces played on the Sarode, a 25-stringed, fretless, acoustic instrument that Alam compares to the slide guitar. Along with the sitar, the Sarode is the most popular and prominent instrument in the classical music of Hindustan (northern India)

American born and bred, Alam has toured Canada, the United States, Britain and India bringing the Sarode to new ears and aficionados alike . Play Like a Lion captures a particularly poignant moment in Alam's life - the first time the musician toured India without his father, 3 years before the maestro died in 2009 at the age of 87.

Alam performed onstage with Ali Akbar Khan from 1996-2006. The decade brought them to such prestigious venues as the Royal Jodhpur Palace, the Dover Lane Music Festival in Calcutta, and New York's Lincoln Center Jazz festival, as well as highly acclaimed concerts all over the United States, Canada, Europe and India.

Since his solo career began in 1998, Alam has received praise and attention for his Sarod playing from musical icons such as Sitar Legend Ravi Shankar, Carlos Santana, Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead, Saxophonist John Handy, Ustad Vilayat Khan, Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, Pandit Buddhadev Dasgupta, and many more of India's finest musicians. Alam has had the privilege and honor of performing alongside some of India's greatest Tabla masters--such as Swapan Chaudhuri, Zakir Hussain and Anindo Chatterjee--in a constantly growing list of venues, including the Dover Lane Music Festival, Saptak, the Darbar Festival, the San Francisco World Music Festival, the Chicago World Music Festival and the Carnegie Group in NYC. Alam has performed and collaborated with a wide array of artists from different genres such as Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Bob Weir, Rob Wasserman, Cristopher Hedge, Homayoun Sakhi, underground Hip-Hop legends Eligh and Amplive, and electronic artist Janaka Selekta.

Following his father's wishes, Alam is now the teacher of advanced instrumental and vocal classes at the Ali Akbar College of Music and has dedicated his life to preserving, performing and teaching this music to the world. Alam Khan has established himself as Ali Akbar Khan's true heir and the face of a new generation of Sarode players.

Shades of Sarode features accompaniment by Salar Nader on Tabla. Salar Nader is one of the most sought-after young percussionists of his generation. He was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1981 to Afghan parents forced to flee their home during the Russian-Afghan war, settling in the Bay Area at age five. At age seven, he began studying with the legendary tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, who today counts Salar as one of his most talented protégés.