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 Feature
The sitar's flower power years
Pandit Ravi Shankar's 1960s concerts
The picture of an angel sitting on a gramophone record is familiar to music lovers who have heard the 1960s LPs of Pandit Ravi Shankar. That was the logo of Angel Records, the London label that regularly brought out his music. These old LPs are back in cassette form, thanks to Milestone Entertainment.
We hear of the overseas success of Indian films and their songs. It is one thing for Russian audiences to take to Raj Kapoor's songs, or the Japanese to rave about Rajnikanth's films, and quite another for them to appreciate raga music. Ravi Shankar not only played raga music all over the West but also taught sincere lay audiences the art of listening. He told a California paper, "Indian music can't be listened to the same way you hear rock and roll. You cannot do 'Yea yea' and 'Go man go!' That's not my type of music really. It should be heard with a certain feeling of humility and concentration. If one does that, there are really a lot of things that one can find in our music."
The dancer-turned-musician has journeyed a long way since those days when he converted rock and roll audiences to the more difficult appreciation of raga music. He has cut discs with greats like Yehudi Menuhin, experimented with the minimalist musician Philip Glass, written an autobiography, trained scores of talented musicians, and very recently, won the Bharat Ratna.
A grand view
These four tapes give a panoramic view of Ravi Shankar's ouevre. Indian motifs abound on the inlay cards; the packaging is excellent. The notes on the inlay cards are meticulous and well written, explaining complex musical concepts in plain English. Wish all music labels took the trouble to be as helpful!
The Ravi Shankar Collection comes in four tapes. Portrait of Genius features some of his non-classical experiments. Tala Rasa Ranga is a three-minute percussion composition folksy in spirit. The tabla, dholak and kartal play stylised patterns on Ravi Shankar's bare sitar melody. Tabla Dhwani is more classically oriented. Alla Rakha leads a tabla ensemble playing teen taal in different tempos. The lehra is played by Paul Horn, a Western flute player, and sounds very attractive straight and meend-free. Yet another rhythmic piece is the tabla tarang playing the obscure nine-beat matta tala.
The short gat in Kirwani (2:37) is played like a taan numa, where the main melody is a series of notes strung together in quick succession. Raga Multani (19:41) is a more elaborate essay.
India's Master Musician was originally recorded in 1963. A 78-year-old Ravi Shankar says of the music he played when he was 42: "I know I am a better musician now with more depth and understanding… but it still excites me to hear the crisp freshness, fantasies and the humour of the youth in these pieces".
On Side 1 he plays Kafi Holi, a melody associated with the festival of colour, a dhun, and a Mishra Piloo composition. These are light and playful and not as rigorously structured as the ragas he plays on Side 2. Puriya Dhanasri (11:16) and Charukeshi (13:30), a raga he took from the south and popularised in the north, give him space for a more emotional elaboration.
On a rainy day
Ravi Shankar played at the Monterey pop festival on a cold, gloomy and rainy day in 1967. He didn't play down to the young audience; in fact, he played a very contemplative alap in raga Bhimpalasi. Everything -- the young people with their flowers, the incense sticks he burns for inspiration -- added up to create just the right atmosphere. "I always feel I could have given a better performance, but that afternoon I felt almost satisfied," says Panditji.
In London appeals to the hardcore classicist. Ramkali, the Bhairav-like raga that also uses the tivra madhyam and komal nishad, is a leisurely exposition. Side 1 features Hamsadhwani, another melody Ravi Shankar borrowed from the south, and a dhun in Kafi.
Says Ravi Shankar, "It is so gratifying to see that since about 50 years when I started experimenting with Indian classical, contemporary and folk music, and with non-Indian music instruments and musicians, I have inspired so many brilliant musicians from India, the West and other areas - resulting in all sorts of interesting music like fusion, new age, world music, etc."
Ravi Shankar admits he finds some of his early music "naive". But it is still a delight to hear his young music, and to see those evocative LP jackets. Thank you Milestone for such a thoughtful retrospective.
S R Ramakrishna
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Ravi Shankar's international success has contributed considerably to the sitar's present popularity. The sitar's tone is thin and liquid; it is perhaps a more romantic instrument than the deep-toned sarod, the instrument his guru Ustad Allauddin Khan played. Ravi Shankar says he had to work very hard to create his own playing technique. 
Looking back, in 1998, he feels the youth of that age, in spite of its drug abuse, was "inclined towards love and peace and a genuine passion for beauty and spirituality". This gradually died, he says, "because of the exploitation of these kids' passion and innocence".