Gig Review: Solo performances by Durjoy Choudhury

As we slowly and languidly entered the mall, faint traces of a harmonica accompanied by the strumming of an acoustic guitar touched us. It reminded me of my childhood days when I heard Bob Dylan for the first time in a local radio channel. We were unaware of the event, instead met with it quite luckily. Mani Square, Kolkata, April 22nd, 2011.

We were all taken aback by the fantastic use of harmonica, the smooth strumming of a guitar and the prominent voice of Durjoy. In simpler terms he was fantastic on stage, sometimes sounding like a Greek God. In a single breath, Durjoy, the singer-songwriter, performed for an hour and a half. His lyrics seemed to have the touch of the 1960s but yet they sounded afresh and energetic at the same time. It had been a great pleasure to watch him on stage, singing 15 songs among which there were only a handful of covers, like Leonard Cohen’s “Take this Waltz” and “Suzanne”, Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”, Arlo Guthrie’s “Comin’ into Los Angeles” and the concluding song, Billy Joel’s “Pianoman”. He moved through a variety of genres throughout the show, with his Blues original, “You Know Who I Am!”, a rock ‘n’ roll number called “A Love Song in D-Major”, and some songs in the country rhythm like, “Back on the Road Again”, “Song for the Girl with Weary Eyes” etc. In the concluding session, Durjoy had been accompanied by Tathagata on the solo guitar, who really added an extra zeal to a couple of his songs.

It had really been a great pleasure to witness Durjoy, live on stage in Mani Square, with his fantastic set of original music and his extraordinary use of harmonica. It had been a long time since someone with such promising and prominent song writing capabilities hit the stage in Kolkata. It had been a rocking evening witnessing the masterpiece of such class.

About the singer: Durjoy started taking music seriously since 2004 and it was from then that he started composing his own songs and his only accompaniment at that time was his guitar. Initially, he was excessively influenced by the songs of Bob Dylan and it was then that he took up the harmonica as his second instrument, and started playing both simultaneously. Today, Durjoy has over eighty originals and he likes to control the stage single-handedly doing that “one-man-band” act.

Equipments: Takamine LTD 2008 Acoustic Guitar
Hohner Harmonicas – Models – ‘Blues Harp’ and ‘Pro Harp’

Solo Acts:
1.“U-Turn ’07”, Jadavpur University, September 2007
2.“Mileu 2008”, Presidency College, January 2008
3.Reunion, Dept. of Economics, JNU, New Delhi, March 2008
4.Panjim Pharmaceutical Institute, Panjim, Goa, March 2008
5.“Fresher’s Welcome” Dept. of Comparative Literature, September 2008
6.“Xavotsav ’09”, St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, January 2009
7.“Sanskriti 2009”, SFSU, Jadavpur University, March 2009
8.“Open Mic.”, Someplace Else, November 2009
9.“Open Mic.”, Someplace Else, January 2010
10.“Open Mic.”, Someplace Else, February 2010
11.“Sanskriti 2010”, FETSU, Jadavpur University, March 2010
12.“Best of Open Mic.”, Someplace Else, April 2010
13.“Soundcheck” Jadavpur University, February 2011
14.Mani Square, April 2011

[Note from BTL team: As planned, BTL has now started reviewing for gigs happening at Kolkata too. Not all of them are possible, but as much as time and money and contacts approve, guest reviewers from Kolkata are now allowed to send updates in the form of write-ups and pictures to BTL.
As the first one of these new developments, we hosted musician Durjoy Choudhury on BTL today. Reviewed by none other than his close friend and manager Aniruddha Das.]