Review Excerpts from - FROOTS, UK 1999

Very, very occasionally, a voice of such outstanding quality comes along, it demands Immediate attention. When that voice also delivers a richness of ideas, the temptation to go into hyperbolic overdrive is maddening. Let’ s take six deep breaths and say only that Shweta Jhaveri’ s voice is very, very special indeed. Hers is the sort of music that feels as natural as breathing in and out, heady like a hit of extra oxygen in the bloodstream. When the listener feels as if particular pieces of music have always been in their life, that is a very good sign.

To A Beloved on her latest album Anahita is pure seduction. She sets her composition in Raga Bageshree with its attendant mood of longing. For a more traditionally styled performance, take Heart of Darkness from the film Dance of The Wind, thoughtfully included on Navras’s 1997 soundtrack album. Her performance is textbook traditional, her voice unerringly shadowed by Sultan khan's sarangi.

" I prefer to sing khayal as it suits me temperamentally and I am interested in the technical part also. I love to improvise so I think it is the best form for me " she explains. " Vocal music was my first love than kathak dancing so I continued with that." In Anahita Shweta Jhaveri's Khayals might be paraphrased as impressionistic. Cosmic Khayals is how she describes it.