Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar (April 7, 1920 - December 11, 2012) was an Indian sitar player, teacher and composer, widely regarded as India's most important musician and respected for his virtuoso playing.
Biography
After years of intensive musical study, he set up schools of Indian music, founded the National Orchestra of India, and in the mid-1950s became the first Indian instrumentalist to undertake an international tour. During these early years he often performed with Chatur Lal on tabla and Nodu C. Mullick on tamboura. All three musicians can be heard on the album India's Master Musician (1959)
His fame in the West grew when he met The Beatles in 1965. Shankar struck a friendship with George Harrison, who became more interested in Indian culture, music and philosophy. Shankar also learned him to play the sitar, which gave the Beatle songs Norwegian Wood (1965), Love You To (1966), Tomorrow Never Knows (1966), Within, Without You (1967) and The Inner Light (1968) a highly unique sound in pop music at the time. Harrison's first solo album, Wonderwall Music (1968), was even completely sitar-based. Other Western rock bands in the 1960s started copying sitar sounds in their own psychedelic music, including The Byrds, David Crosby, The Doors (on The End, 1967), Scott McKenzie and, most notably, The Rolling Stones on Paint It Black (1966) and Street Fightin' Man (1968).
Soon Shankar found himself in demand in the West as a performer and teacher in all areas of music - from the Edinburgh International Festival to the jazz and rock worlds. In 1967 he performed at the Monterey Pop Rock Festival and Woodstock (1969) as the only non-rock musician. He recorded the album West Meets East (1967) with violinist Yehudi Menuhin. In 1970 André Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra performed together with Shankar on the album Concerto for Sitar & Orchestra. He also played during George Harrison's benefit concert Concert for Bangladesh (1971). In 1981 Shankar collaborated with Zubin Mehta on Raga Mala and in 1990 with composer Philip Glass on Passages.
Shankar wrote several film scores, the most notable being for Satyajit Ray's trilogy, "Apu" and Richard Attenborough's Oscar-winning Gandhi (1982). In 1999 he received the highest civilian order in India: the Bharat Ratna. In 2000 he was inducted into the Légion d'Honneur and in 2001 he was knighted. He is also notable as the father of musicians Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar.
Jazz musician John Coltrane named his son Ravi, after him.
Zappa and Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar is mentioned in the list of influences inside the sleeve of "Freak Out!" (1966) under the heading: "These People Have Contributed Materially In Many Ways To Make Our Music What It Is. Please Do Not Hold It Against Them". His tamboura player Nodu C. Mullick and tabla player Chatur Lal are mentioned in the same list.
Jimmy Carl Black recalled that Zappa made him and the rest of the Mothers listen to Shankar in the fall of 1965: "We asked why and he said, "Because we're going to start doing some stuff like this!" [1]
A November Escapade 1967 article, "The Mothers of Invention", by Fred Vassi, mentions that Shankar was signed to Zappa's Bizarre Records label. [2]
Zappa about Ravi Shankar
"I think my playing is probably more derived from the folk music records that I heard; Middle Eastern music, Indian music, stuff like that. For years I had something called Music On The Desert Road, which was an album with all kinds of different ethnic music from the Middle East. I used to listen to that all the time - I liked that kind of melodic feel. I listened to Indian music, Ravi Shankar and so forth, before we did the 'Freak Out!' album. The idea of creating melody from scratch based on an ostinato or single chord that doesn't change - that was the world that I felt most comfortable with. If you listen to Indian classical music, it's not just pentatonic. Some of the ragas that they use are very chromatic, all sustained over a root and a fifth that doesn't change, and by using these chromatic scales they can imply all these other kinds of harmonies. The chords don't change; it's just the listener's aspect that gets to change, based on how the melody notes are driven against the ground bass." - Frank Zappa - Unholy Mother, Guitarist Magazine, June 1993.
