Music OnLine : Classics : sitar
As the best known Indian musician, Shankar has helped expand the traditionally closed repertoire of North Indian Classical music. Under the guidance of guru Allauddin Khan, father of Ali Akbar Khan, Shankar forged a split from the more traditional styles of the equally important playing school led by Vilayat Khan. Shankar's initial innovation was a buzzier tone and flashier playing techniques that clashed with the sitar's historically more serious, solemn tone, drawing criticism from more conservative musicians. Collaborations with Western Artists such as Yehudi Menuhin and The Beatles further opened the music's boundaries, paving the way for more experimental outings by artists including Zakir Hussain and Trilok Gurtu. Though his sound became synonymous with psychedelia in the '60s, Shankar did not enjoy the role of "trip" leader. Indeed, it takes a very clear mind and vigorous practice to reach the level of technical mastery and spiritual power that Shankar has achieved.
At their best, Soledad Brothers recall the Rolling Stones when Mick and Keith were fresh-faced bluesheads in the mid-Sixties: The prolific Detroit foursome kicks out solid, harmonica-laced blues riffs without sounding derivative or cheesily nostalgic. "Downtown Paranoia Blues" is a distortion-happy tribute to no-good women and the men who love them. "Got that paranoia and it's spinning in my head," drawls singer Johnny Walker, with a little irony: "I could see her laying down in half a million beds." Guitars whine convincingly over the down-at-the-heels piano ballad "Crying Out Loud (Tears of Joy)," and the meandering, ten-minute-plus hidden track, "Dirty Beef in C," is full of psychedelic sitar twangs sure to win over the stoner contingent. Meet the Motor City's newest hitmakers.
One of the top violinists of the twentieth century, Yehudi Menuhin began his illustrious career with a series of stunning concerts in San Francisco, New York and Paris -- all when he was between the ages of seven and ten years old. Phenomenal technique, a rich depth of tone and a maturity far beyond his years led him to interpret the works of masters Beethoven, Bach and Mozart, attacking solos and concertos with a passion rarely rivaled. In the 1950s, Menuhin began to focus on conducting, developing a taste for Indian Classical music that led to a series of groundbreaking collaborations with sitar maestro Ravi Shankar. Though the vigor of his early recordings faded in his later work, the socially engaged Menuhin has left a large body of music and a legacy filled with countless musical and humanitarian awards.
Anoushka is Ravi Shankar's legitimate daughter and she rivals Norah Jones -- if not outdoes her -- in sheer musicality. But what can you expect from a girl who started studying music with her father, the world's most famous sitar player, when she was just nine years old? Granted, her father wasn't too interested in teaching Anoushka to play sitar, probably due to some residual cultural sexism, but with her mother's intercession the elder Shankar conceded. It was a good thing, too; within four years Anoushka was making waves with her first public performance (in New Delhi) and a guest spot on her father's 1994 release, In Celebration. Shankar released her first solo recording, the aptly named Anoushka, in 1998 to critical acclaim. Anourag followed, and in 2001 her Live At Carnegie Hall was nominated for a Best World Music Album Grammy, making her the youngest nominee ever for that honor. Somewhere in the mix Shankar had also become a master classical pianist -- and this was all before she turned 22 years old. Shankar took a much-needed sabbatical in 2004, though the break proved to be more productive than she'd expected: she wrote her first short film score and came up with material for a new solo release, 2005's Rise. A personal and unconventional album, Rise takes its inspiration from classical Indian ragas -- actually moving through a full cycle of morning to evening ragas from start to finish -- while radically re-imagining the form. Collaborators on the album include South Indian slide guitarist Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and flamenco pianist Ricardo Mino, and Shankar experiments ably with an ambient soundscape that at times recalls the best work of film composer A.R. Rahman.
Stevie Winwood, all of 18 years old, is probably the major blues voice of his generation. If this wasn't already apparent on the two Spencer Davis Group albums released in this country and the other records so far unreleased, and from the monstrous smash song "I'm A Man," then with the R&B tracks Stevie sings on the American release of Traffic's first album, it should be even more so. His voice has matured, acquired new depth and new reaches, a more individual feeling and a greater range in both style and tones.The albums that feature Stevie Winwood are all pretty much great albums, and Heaven Is In Your Mind (or Dear Mr. Fantasy, to which the title was changed after the first pressing of the album) is no exception.
Traffic is the group that Winwood formed after he and his brother Muff split the Spencer Davis Group a year ago. Winwood got three other musicians (Dave Mason, guitar and sitar; Jim Capaldi, drums; and Chris Wood, flute and bass) to join him. Together they set out for the country, where they lived for three months in an isolated cottage in Berkshire. (Hence the song "Berkshire Poppies," with all its pleasant references to country life, disgust at the sadness of the city, and "Rainy Day Woman" type refrains . . . leading one to draw hasty, and probably not incorrect, assumptions about what went on in the cottage in the field of Berkshire poppies.)
Just as the group was releasing its first record, and fame appeared imminent, Dave Mason left the group. Not because of any conflicts, just that he didn't want to be famous. He still expects to record and write for Traffic. The American release of the album leaves off two of Dave Mason's song, but it does pick up all the sides of the two American single releases not on the English LP and the great R & B-styled cut "Smiling Phases," which is one of the best pieces on the album.
"Hole In My Shoe" and "Paper Sun" are the singles which never went anywhere. They are excellent examples of what Traffic, with Mason, is capable of without Winwood's vocals or R&B strength. Both use a sitar, and on "Paper Sun," the sitar lines are phrased much like Jimi Hendrix's guitar. 'Hole In My Shoe," has got an almost insane beat and melody, but still they both work very well as songs. They're not as good as the Winwood-styled stuff, but they stand on their own because they are much different. "Dealer" is another one of these, with a gypsy guitar woven around a variety of flute solos. These songs are "comprehensibly farout."
But the strongest points of this album are where the elements of Traffic's "comprehensible far-out" and Winwood's great R&B style are combined. "Heaven is In Your Mind" is one of those, but it doesn't really make it in the way that "Dear Mr. Fantasy," the magnum opus of the album, does. "Heaven" is too scattered in instrumentation and arrangement to be a real grabber. "Mr. Fantasy" has excellent lyrics ("Do anything to take ups out of this gloom, s
Beggars Banquet marked the return of the Rolling Stones to basic, hard-edged rock & roll. Their previous LP, Their Satanic Majesties Request, had been mired in psychedelic experimentation of a sort for which the band had little genuine feeling -- despite the series of drug-related arrests that had plagued the group. Beggars Banquet was rooted in rhythm & blues and powered by propulsive tracks like "Street Fighting Man," "Sympathy for the Devil," "Stray Cat Blues" and "Parachute Woman." The Stones had stopped following trends and were back at full force. The album signified "the Rolling Stones' coming of age," says Glyn Johns, who engineered the record and had worked with the Stones since their earliest days. "I think that the material was far better than anything they'd ever done before. The whole mood of the record was far stronger to me musically."
Producer Jimmy Miller describes Keith Richards as having been "a real workhorse" on the album, largely because Brian Jones rarely made it to the studio, and when he did, he behaved erratically, due to his drug use and emotional problems. "Brian was sort of in and out," Miller says. "He'd show up occasionally when he was in the mood to play, and he could never really be relied on.... When he would show up at a session -- let's say he had just bought a sitar that day, he'd feel like playing it, so he'd look in his calendar to see if the Stones were in. Now he may have missed the previous four sessions. We'd be doing, let's say, a blues thing. He'd walk in with a sitar, which was totally irrelevant to what we were doing, and want to play it. I used to try to accommodate him. I would isolate him, put him in a booth and not record him onto any track that we really needed. And the others, particularly Mick and Keith, would often say to me, 'Just tell him to piss off and get the hell out of here.'"
Despite his problems, Jones contributed extraordinary slide guitar playing to "No Expectations," "Parachute Woman" and "Jig-Saw Puzzle." His sitar -- and tamboura, as well -- can be heard on "Street Fighting Man."
In typical Rolling Stones fashion, various other hitches arose regarding Beggars Banquet. The album's original cover art, depicting a bathroom wall covered with graffiti, was banned. The Stones attempted unsuccessfully to fight their record company's decision -- and from today's perspective, the cover seems quite harmless. Nevertheless, the dispute held up the album's release for months. Jagger and Richards were misidentified on the record as the authors of Robert Wilkins's Biblical blues number "Prodigal Son." And the political correctness of "Street Fighting Man" -- with its ambivalent lines "What can a poor boy do/'Cept sing in a rock and roll band" -- was debated intensely and at great length in the underground media.
As usual, the Stones flourished amid the charges and countercharges. They wer
If Jane's Addiction and Faith No More taught us anything, it's that competent musicians can mix any style of music together. It's a lesson the six guys in Woven have obviously taken to heart, as their full-length debut finds them playing with a laundry list of musical genres. "Pillage" sets the stage with its liberal use of sitar-sounding effects, Blind Melon-ish jam rock, spacey electronica, and lofty prog-rock vocals. While Radiohead, the Cure and Pink Floyd (circa Meddle) are obvious influences here, listeners will also hear remnants of Curve, Peter Gabriel's soundtrack work, world music rhythms, Massive Attack and hip-hop. Such eclecticism can collapse messily, but Woven use it cautiously, giving 8 Bit Monk a cohesive, albeit mellow, tone, and making Monk a worthy ride. PAUL SEMEL
(June 17, 2003)
On his first solo album, Jay Farrar ventures a bit beyond the rustic string-band approach that made Americana pioneers of his old groups, Son Volt and Uncle Tupelo. There's nary a former band mate in sight; instead, the likes of Flaming Lips' Steven Drozd join him in fleshing out this varied lot of songs. You'll hear everything from sitar noise on "Prelude (Make It Alright)" to big, gonging bells on the grandly assertive "Clear Day Thunder." At the same time, Farrar remains grounded in the loamy soil of alt-folk, and these fourteen numbers cohere around his woozy, grainy voice - think Gene Clark and Michael Stipe - and sturdy acoustic strumming, which leads the charge on the chiming, melancholy "Voodoo Candle." He sings in elliptical riddles, dryly delivering lines like "Smoke beats water anyhow" ("Damn Shame") and "Glycerine time is a privilege earned" ("Damaged Son") as if they make perfect sense. And, in a way, they do.PARKE PUTERBAUGH
(RS 880 - October 25, 2001)
His clip file is home to a bigheaded kid who's memorized Bob Dylan's Playboy interview, a slacker version of the Pretentious Ass--here a folkie there a punk everywhere an image-slinger (with absurdist tendencies, mais oui). But his album barely contains an exuberant experimenter whose verbiage coheres on record--either because he knows records are history or because repetition tamps down the loose ends. He's a folkie-punk version of, well, the Young Bob Dylan, except that he also loves hooks enough to cast his net wider than the Young David Johansen, finding them everywhere from an electric sitar to an illicitly taped tirade from a "Vietnam vet playin' air guitar" downstairs. Full of fun and loaded with 'tude, he doesn't care what you think of him and makes you love it, right down to the nose-thumbing bummer dirges that close each side. Proving how cool you are by making an album that sounds like sh*t is easy. Proving how cool you are by making an album that comes this close to sounding like sh*t is damn hard--unless you're damn talented. (Grade: A)Based out of Tel Aviv, Israel, Angel Tears is the joint project of Momi Ochion and Sebastian James Taylor. Ochion, whose roots lie in Israeli pop and world fusion music, is the melody man of the duothe brain behind the compositional aspects and a lot of the studio work. Taylor, who composes and performs much of the music, hails from London and is known for his work with the electronic groups Kaya Project, Shakta and Digitalis. Rhythyms range from electronic beats to the earthy thump of the Bedouin dharbouka and other indigenous drums. Asian and Middle Eastern vocals lend a spiritual quality to the music, and instrumentation includes Tibetan flutes, Indian sitar, Arabian violin, Middle Eastern horns, grand piano and electric guitar all sharing the same space. Mellow synthesizers swirl amidst the elements, bringing everything together into a cohesive package. The groups music is found on many global fusion compilations, including Buddha Bar 2, SupperClub, and Lotus Lounge. Their songs are also heard on popular TV shows including Sex in the City, Third Watch and The West Wing. Perfect for everything from yoga to fitness to lounging on the couch.
Like Portishead – with whom they often get tossed into the same barrel of brooding monkeys – Morcheeba have found the tie that binds Sixties spy music, blues-infused hip-hop and fragile balladry. Morcheeba are less tortured than their British brethren, though: On their perversely sunny Big Calm, the London-based trio takes a detour from the trippier hippie-hop of its 1996 debut, Who Can You Trust?, dragging acoustic guitars to the forefront.
The celestial, honey-dripped sighs and whispers of singer Skye Edwards keep Morcheeba from being the mere studio machinations of production whiz Paul Godfrey and his guitarist brother, Ross. Edwards is a gifted stylist who knows how to elevate the simplest lyric to a ravaged revelation or a wicked kick in the ass. Songs like the blissful, sitar-driven "Shoulder Holster," the coy reggae gyrations of "Friction" and the exhausted mantra of "Over and Over" ("I'd like to meet a madman who makes it all seem sane") rest on Edwards' ability to sweetly hover above the Godfreys' haunted observations. Big Calm is an unpredictable, seductive album, a restless walkabout for the romantically vexed. (RS 784)
KARA MANNING
The Minstrels are a crazy band. Originally from Canada and France (but currently residing in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Tahiti), this ever-changing Power Pop outfit has always been led by high plains drifter George Christian. In the beginning, they were inspired by Mersey Beat/British Invasion bands, as well as 1960s Power Pop; however, they incorporate members of the Brian Jonestown Massacre (including Anton Newcomb's ex-wife), Friends of Dean Martinez and the Delta 72 to reveal a kinetic, innovative Power Pop/Garage Rock Revival sound. Songs are embellished with sitar, Moog, 12-string guitars, Farfisa organ, drum loops, samples and lots of hip-shaking tambourine to create music chock full of wiry Mod influences that also borrow heavily from French Pop. If the production and sound on these songs sound similar to the Brian Jonestown Massacre's 1998 album Strung Out In Heaven, don't be alarmed -- the Minstrels actually claim to have snuck into the BJM studio while Newcomb was on tour with his merry cranksters to record their music.
The deepest cut on Arular is "Amazon," where M.I.A. the favela funk thief depicts herself as a cultivated Brit kidnapped by Brazilian criminals. She's missing from Acton, her London 'hood, but after she fell for that palm tree smell, "bodies started merging." The vertiginous excitement of pan-ethnic identity, so unlike the purity the Tamil Tigers kill for, imbues every pieced-together track, but only on "Hombre," a pidgin-Spanish proposition with a sitar intro, does it get quite so explicit. Violence is everywhere, dropped casually like a funk grenade or flaunted instructively as in the oft quoted "It's a bomb yo/So run yo/Put away your stupid gun yo." But not for a moment does the violence seem vindictive, sadistic, or pleasurable. It's a fact of life to be triumphed over, with beats and tunelets stolen or remembered or willed into existence. This is the territory I've always wished Missy Elliott would risk, and let's not be coy about how M.I.A. got there. "Banana Skit" starts the album with her only message: "Get yourself an education." (Grade: A)Bhattacharya's brain-stretching slide guitar epitomizes world music at its world-iest: a singer trained in his family's classical Gwalior style, Bhattacharya picked up a Hawaiian steel guitar when he was just five years old and never looked back. His sound still traffics in the heady, melodically complex world of Indian classical music, but he has invented his own slide guitars to retain a Hawaiian tone while expanding his musical range. The 22-string chaturangi can imitate sounds as diverse as violin, sarod and sitar; the 14-string ghandarvi veers from sounding like a flamenco guitar to a sarangi; and the tiny anandi has only four strings. He has also created new finger and playing styles that have led to unbelievably fast playing, much of which was never possible before. The result? Music that never compromises its roots, though it fiddles with them gleefully. Only a few other musicians have visited the hypothetical musical world that lives between the South Pacific and South Asia, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Ry Cooder and Bob Brozman among them. But few can claim Bhattacharya's virtuosity: listening to a raga by the man can be both an emotional and an intellectual journey.
For four albums now, Texas-born, Venezuela-raised Devendra Banhart has been getting serious mileage out of a rock archetype: the mysterioso folkie with bohemian leanings and poetry to spare. On the intermittently terrific Cripple Crow, Banhart's eccentricities -- notably his impressionistic lyrics and a quavery croon that suggests Robert Plant as well as esteemed dead guys like Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley -- enliven meandering tunes that alternately kiss you on the cheek and just kind of curl up at your feet. "Some People Ride the Wave" is a cute piano ditty that sums up Banhart's past as an international vagabond, "Lazy Butterfly" is a sitar-and-tabla-backed daydream featuring half-intelligible sneering and "The Beatles" ponders the early passing of half of the Fab Four before drifting into cartoonishly accented Spanish. But when Banhart sputters joyful melodies on charming, fully realized tunes such as "I Feel Just Like a Child," it's the sound of a talented space cadet finding his bearings.
Everybody knows the Beatles studied with the Maharishi, but not everyone knows Ananda Shankar -- one of the first musicians to really bring Indian music to western pop. Nephew to Ravi Shankar and the son of classical dancers, Shankar grew up in a music-saturated environment. After completing his academic studies, he turned to the sitar. Rather than pursue classical Hindustani music, however, Shankar was interested in fusion almost from the get-go. A trip to California in the late 1960s cemented Shankar's passion for genre-mixing, and he laid down a self-titled album that became a cult favorite -- primarily because of his adventurous eastern takes on songs like "Light My Fire" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash." A new generation of Asian breakbeat artists rediscovered Shankar nuggets in the mid-1990s, and Shankar found himself touring in Peter Gabriel's Womad festival and recording with Asian hipsters State of Bengal. The resulting album, Walking On, is a playful disc that has a harder edge than most Real World releases, though it's certainly not for purists. Shankar died in 1999.
Whenever she lets her imagination loose into one sumptuous minisymphony of a pop song, twenty-eight-year-old singer and Clive Davis protegee Lamya sounds like Kate Bush, Tori Amos and Bjork rolled into one trans-Atlantic package. The epic "Empires," with its intro of ominous timpani, whispered vocal interlude and lyrics that speak of warriors, mountains and spiritual preachers, is dazzling. Tunes such as the more formulaic but undeniably catchy "Never Enough" betray Lamya's desire to conquer the mainstream, to hold the global airwaves hostage to her feline choruses and hip alt-rock underpinnings. You're left pining for more of her delicious weirdness, more sitar solos, more of her trombone playing and Swahili lyrics. Let's hope this larger-than-life debut is merely the first step of a fruitful, idiosyncratic career. ERNESTO LECHNER
(RS 902 - August 8, 2002)
The youngest member of the Beatles, George Harrison was often considered "the shy one." In fact, his strong voice was arguably the most underrated of the four. Lennon and McCartney often passed over many of Harrison's song submissions, recording only a small selection of his masterpieces per album (including "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Here Comes The Sun"). When Harrison's first solo recording, All Things Must Pass, was released, many music critics felt that the triple album's fruitfulness was a direct result of Lennon and McCartney's neglect. In his work with the Beatles and solo, Harrison blended earthy Roots tones with droning eastern influences and cascading melodies. Compared to Lennon's barbed and bluesy grit or McCartney's jaunty pop sensibilities, the sound was organic and blooming, huge yet worldly. His songs unfolded unpredictably and took the listener to unfamiliar sonic regions. Music enthusiasts credit him for integrating eastern sounds into western music -- Harrison introduced the sitar and Indian ragas to pop music. He also spearheaded the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971, a music festival assembled to benefit Bengali refugees of the India-Pakistan war. Harrison passed away on Nov. 29, 2001, in Los Angeles after losing a prolonged battle with cancer.
The deepest cut on Arular is "Amazon," where M.I.A. the favela funk thief depicts herself as a cultivated Brit kidnapped by Brazilian criminals. She's missing from Acton, her London 'hood, but after she fell for that palm tree smell, "bodies started merging." The vertiginous excitement of pan-ethnic identity, so unlike the purity the Tamil Tigers kill for, imbues every pieced-together track, but only on "Hombre," a pidgin-Spanish proposition with a sitar intro, does it get quite so explicit. Violence is everywhere, dropped casually like a funk grenade or flaunted instructively as in the oft quoted "It's a bomb yo/So run yo/Put away your stupid gun yo." But not for a moment does the violence seem vindictive, sadistic, or pleasurable. It's a fact of life to be triumphed over, with beats and tunelets stolen or remembered or willed into existence. This is the territory I've always wished Missy Elliott would risk, and let's not be coy about how M.I.A. got there. "Banana Skit" starts the album with her only message: "Get yourself an education." (Grade - A)
Most of Big Fun consists of outtakes from Bitches Brew and Live/Evil days, and one can only wonder why superb performances like "Great Expectations" and "Lonely Fire" were canned. The former piece gets a mesmerizing, other-worldly texture from electric sitar, tamboura, berimbau (Brazilian musical bow) and electric guitar and has one of Miles's most lyrical lines. In effect, both pieces are all-star sessions, with John McLaughlin. Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Billy Cobham, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul and Airto featured. "Ife" is the most recent performance and in many ways the most interesting, with elusive, squiggly reeds, terrific keyboards by Lonnie Liston Smith and delicately propulsive percussion by Mtume and Badal Roy. Only "Go Ahead John" misses, largely because two trumpets are overdubbed, causing some congestion, and because McLaughlin's solo is painfully distorted, as if it were coming through a Sears & Roebuck amp with its fuses blown. But essentially Big Fun is the most consistently appealing, varied and adventurous Miles Davis album since Live/Evil, commands attention as such, and will doubtless give Davis's many imitators something to think about.User options
(Forum Login)Search
Popular Search: