Ravi Shankar – Ravi Shankar In Hollywood (East Meets West Music, 2016)
Like doling out single pieces of candy to a greedy child, the world music community is treated to another precious goody from the audio archives amassed over the years by the revered Ravi Shankar. On tap this year is the double CD set Ravi Shankar In Hollywood, set to hit the music marketplace on September 30th on the East Meets West Music label, although pre-orders are available.
I imagine since his death in December of 2012, there’s been a bum’s rush to sift through the collection of recorded music by the famed sitarist to scrounge out all the recordings that were passed over for release. It was bound to happen.
Shankar fans have reaped the rewards with box sets like Ravi Shankar: 6 Classic Albums Box Set (2013), Music of India Box Set (2013) and Genesis of a Genius – Excerpts from Seven Classic Albums double CD set (2015).
The East Meets West Music label has released its own collected tracks on Living Room Sessions Part 2 (2013) with Tanmoy Bose, Kenji Ota and Barry Phillips, Nine Decades – Vol. 4 – A Night at St. John the Divine (2014) and Ravi & Anoushka Shankar Live in Bangalore (2015) in the form of a two CD set and DVD. With so many releases it’s like the master never left.
Ravi Shankar in Hollywood stands out from some of the other releases in that it was recorded in 1972 in Mr. Shankar’s home on Highland Avenue as a private concert for invited guests. It was a rare morning concert with the likes of George Harrison in attendance. It was also the impetus for the Concert for Bangladesh intended to benefit those suffering in the wake of Cyclone Bhola in East Pakistan, those areas that would become Bangladesh. The recording of Ravi Shankar in Hollywood is precious indeed, not only for the concern Mr. Shankar expressed for those suffering to just the right ears of those with the means to do something, but also the elegant intimacy and brilliance of the recording.
Joined by tabla player Alla Rakha and tanpura player Kamala Chakravarty, Ravi Shankar in Hollywood leads listeners through the elegant lines and rippling waves of unfolding ragas “Hollywood Raga Vibhas” and the almost hour long “Hollywood Raga Parameshwari” on disc one.
Disc two offers up two more equally hypnotic tracks by way of “Hollywood Dhun” and “Hollywood Raga Sindhi Bhairavi.” The music of Ravi Shankar in Hollywood is indelibly gloriously Ravi Shankar.
Sukanva Shankar, Mr. Shankar’s widow offers her comments for the liner notes and best sums up the influence of her late husband’s music, “What is core to the raga is its Prana or life and its power to be heard and to be propagated, to instill its emotional message in the heart of as many musicians and listeners as possible. Time will tell the validity of a new raga creation, by its acceptance, popularity and longevity. No matter how beautiful the raga, if you are only one who can perform it, it is not considered to of any consequence. Raviji’s ragas can be found in many artist repertoires – that tells you the intensity and emotional effect of his music and his creations.”
Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow.
Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931.
Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.
