Pandit Mahapurush Mishra

What an artist!  I have been enjoying listening to Mahapurush Mishra Ji’s youtube clips recently and wanted to know more about his life.  Here is a short biography of him that I found on the internet.  I wish there was more on his life somewhere though–I want to order Aban Mistry’s book, Tabla and Pakhawaj soon so I can supplement some of these online biographies with the knowledge she gathered for that book.

“Pandit Mahapurush Mishra (1932-1987) was a disciple of Pandit Anokhelal Mishra, a revered master of Tabla. Mahapurush was a famous Tabla accompanist to many topmost musicians and a professor at the Ali Akbar College of Music in Calcutta (now Kolkata). He spent most of his time during the late 1960s in USA teaching, recording, and appearing widely in numerous classical music concerts. There are far too few of his Tabla solos in circulation. However, this solo album of Pandit Mahapurush Mishra, a very rare-of-its-kind, is an invariably spectacular display of his virtuosity and musicality, which he is renowned for.

Longtime Tabla master, sideman to the stars, and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan’s main accompanist throughout the better part of three decades until his death, Pandit Mahapurush Mishra has also appeared on the Beatles b-side of Lady Madonna, George Harrison’s The Inner Light (recorded in Bombay in January 1968 with the vocal tracks added in London the next month) as well as on Harrison’s Wonderwall soundtrack.”  (http://www.questz.com/artists/mahapurush-mishra)