Mark Deutsch and his Bazantar

Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman

Mark Deutsch is a brilliant and unique musician who has devoted the last 3 decades of his life to his instrument the Bazantar, which is unique to him. There is only one Bazantar, which is a double bass hybrid with elements of the sitar: it has 6 main strings, 4 drone strings, and 29 sympathetic strings. Mark grew up as a multi-instrumentalist, but primarily a classical, jazz and rock bass player, and gave up a successful career as a performer to devote himself to the Bazantar. While studying sitar with Ustad Imrat Khan, Mark begin delving into the universal fundamentals of music and its underlying frequency structures. The nonlinear mathematical patterns that exist in sound are found universally in the natural world, includeng seashells, and Mark goes into some of the math of the overtone series in some detail, as well as fascinating specifics of how the Bazantar and his playing of it have evolved. You’ll hear Mark talk about how he developed his patented engineering solution to construct a separate housing for the sympathetic strings. In this episode, Mark demonstrated live, and also is sharing not only excerpts from previously released recordings, but a preview from an upcoming album.

Mark Deutsch website https://bazantar.com/

Podcast website with Transcript and Video link: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/mark-deutsch-and-his-bazantar

Buy me a coffee? https://ko-fi.com/leahroseman

Merchandise store to support the podcast: https://www.leahroseman.com/beautiful-shirts-and-more

Newsletter sign-up: https://mailchi.mp/ebed4a237788/podcast-newsletter

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(03:16) Mark’s background, sitar, and inspiration for creating the Bazantar

(10:52) Bazantar music: excerpt from Lahja from the Picasso Tunings

(12:13) studying sitar with Imrat Khan

(14:10) Alain Danielou’s book Music and the Power of Sound, the math of frequencies and music

(18:14) building the Bazantar

(22:17) excerpt from Avodah from the album Fool

(23:32) Prehistoric Planet

(25:09) 8Dio samples, different tunings and playing techniques

(34:19) Bazantar demo

(39:37) Other episodes you’ll like and different ways to support this series!

(40:54) sympathetic strings with demo

(44:09) excerpt from The Crooked Road from The Picasso Tunings

(45:04) prototypes and the patented engineering solution to the Bazantar

(55:55) different bridge designs

(58:46) improvisation plucked Bazantar

(01:04:13) cross-country tour stories with the Bazantar, Mark’s musical interests

(01:08:38) different approaches to improvisation, learning to play what you’re hearing

(01:14:05) Mark’s approach to teaching and playing

(01:21:50) first album “Fool” with both sitar and Bazantar

(01:25:40) excerpt from Painted Bird on Fool

(01:26:58) fasting

(01:29:00) Picasso Tunings albums

(01:31:45) Antique Slippers, 8th movement from the Picasso Tunings

(01:35:25) decision to move to San Franciso, different tunings

(01:39:18) special effect with just the sympathetic strings with demo from unreleased recording Bardo

(01:42:29) Jaron Lanier, Quincy Jones disbelief

(01:44:13) more Bazantar demos, ideas about improvisation, background to Kundalini Rising

(01:51:54) excerpt from Kundalini Rising from Fool

(01:52:55) more demos and the math of the harmonics and frequencies, developing the Bazantar

(02:08:25) Mark’s approach to improvisation