“Bruce Lee?

“Yeah…”, he said

“That’s awesome.”

“…and ‘Free Tibet’ is the other cat.”

That’s a pretty close approximation to one of my first conversations with Karsh Kale: drummer, tabla master, producer, composer, and — at the time — my new neighbor.

Karsh has since decamped to what I hope for his sake is a less shady building, but I still see him in the ‘hood from time to time.

A few months ago, I bumped into him on the street and asked him what he was up to.

“I’m actually working on a thing for Celebrate Brooklyn — it’s a new score for Enter the Dragon and we’re going to play it along with the movie”, Karsh said.

“Bruce Lee?”, I said.

“Yeah…”

“That’s awesome.”

***

Bruce Lee is kind of a common touchstone for artists of all kinds — Lee’s book, Tao of Jeet Kune Do, is ostensibly a martial arts manual — but, to many, it is also a work of “Artistic Philosophy”. Lee’s struggles and reflections upon the act of “expressing one’s self honestly” have resonated with creative artists since it was first published in 1975. And as I got to know Karsh a little bit, I could see that influence expressed in his own work.

I saw the performance a few weeks later and I really enjoyed it! KK had to come up with something that was different enough from Lalo Schifrin’s original score to be interesting to music lovers — and visceral enough to be rewarding to Kung Fu movie fans — and I think he succeeded on both counts.

Here’s some video of Karsh and his collaborators Gaurav Raina and Tapan Raj (a.k.a., the Midival Punditz) working it out:

If this ever gets a commercial release, you’ve got guaranteed sales to everyone who has seen this performed!  (Are you listening Warner Brothers?). And, until then, pick up a few of his other albums and collaborations:

Breathing Under Water

Realize