Artist Playlists
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Hindustani classical music's most widely beloved and influential modern figure – Pandit Ravi Shankar was a master composer and sitar player of the highest order, and among the Indian musicians who influences western music in the late 20th century. Beginning in the '50s, Shankar became Indian music's most prominent cultural ambassador, attracting students including young composer Philip Glass and Beatle's George Harrison. Listen to the master at play with this handpicked selection. - The sitarist's long career was filled with unexpected twists. These include "Fire Night," a passionate jam with Los Angeles jazz musicians; Shankar's haunting, improvised "Pather Panchali Music Scene 1, Take 1," from Satyajit Ray's film; and "Bangalore Tilak Shyam," which demonstrates Shankar's skill at fusing two ragas—here Tilak Kamod and Shyam Kalyan—into a single sublime creation.
- Ravi Shankar brought Indian classical music to the West with the help of The Beatles' George Harrison, whose "Love You To" is a heavy Indi-pop hybrid. Ravi's daughters, sitarist Anoushka Shankar and singer Norah Jones, make a rare duo appearance in "Traces of You," a loving tribute to their late father. And the great jazz saxophonist John Coltrane improvises freely in the raga-like "India (Live)."
- The most important figure in sitarist Ravi Shankar's life, musical and otherwise, was his austere guru, Ustad Allauddin Khan, a sarod player whose lithe virtuosity is evident in "Raga Lalit (Original)." Sarod player Ali Akbar Khan's prayerful duet with Bollywood playback star Asha Bhosle, "Guru Bandana in Desh Malhar," suggests why Shankar performed alongside him so often.