Bhagwan Khalsa has performed with world class jazz musicians like saxophonists Sonny Fortune, Eric Alexander, Gary Thomas, Cecil Payne, David "Fathead" Newman, Arthur Blythe, Buck Hill and pianists Kenny Drew Jr. and Eric Byrd. Bhagwan has been busy on the Washington, DC jazz scene playing literally thousands of gigs as one of DC's premier musicians.
Bhagwan is versatile as a bass player, playing pop material with local variety bands such as Invitation, First Light and Amaretto. He is also comfortable in the blues idiom, playing with local favorites Nap Turner, Lea Gilmore and the J Street Jumpers. In the mid 1990's, Bhagwan worked with the Bullets Brass Band playing a variety of styles for all of the Washington Bullets home games. He has also performed as a section player for Warner Bros. Publishing at Omega Studios in Rockville, Md., sightreading classical and big band charts.
In September of 2001, Bhagwan traveled to South and Central America as a Jazz Ambassador for the State Department with the Eric Byrd Trio (ericbyrd.com). The trio performed for ambassadors as well as the general public in Columbia, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Honduras and Trinidad.
In 2002, Bhagwan performed a week long international jazz festival and conference in Lima, Peru as a headlining act with the EBT. The trio then performed at the prestigious 36th annual Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, followed by a performance at the Festijazz Festival in La Paz, Bolivia. In October the trio gave a concert in the United Arab Emirates at the Dubai International Jazz Festival.
In 2005, the trio headlined at the East Coast Jazz Festival in Rockville, Md., as well as traveling to Estonia for a pair of concerts in Tallin. Bhagwan also performed at the Artscape Concert Series in Baltimore with blues singer Lea Gilmore.