Raga Guitar

From the five-hundred-year old musical history of the Sufi Fakirs of Bengal to the virtuoso musicianship of Calcutta’s guitar master Debashsish Bhattacharya and Carnatic violinist Jyotsna Srikanth, this Rough Guide explores India’s spiritual connections with its ancient musical traditions.

If it's Indian classical music you're looking for, you'll want to look elsewhere. However, unlike the many Western dilettantes who have picked up the sitar over the years, Al Gromer Khan doesn't just approach the instrument as an exotic novelty or a facile way to hint at spiritual depth. On the unfortunately titled Sitar Secrets he creates original compositions that refer to classical forms without being bound by them, and that convey a sense of contemplative wonder without pretending to any goal more transcendent than that. The opening track bears the wry (one hopes) title "I Got Vilayat Khan's Blessing" and features what is either a very convincing synthesized vocal track or an uncredited female singer who breathily accompanies his gently meandering sitar and sparse hand percussion.

After what was reportedly a commercial failure in the more straight-ahead, symphonically oriented Les Contes du Singe Fou, Cyrille decided to take over the production duties on the next album, Visions, and imbibed it with a slightly new musical direction based on Eastern philosophical and religious precepts. The result is a generally varied work that retains the more structured vibe of the previous album. Cyrille Verdeaux's piano and keyboard melodies are again the dominant force on Visions, and are supplemented by the usual eclectic blend of instrumentation. …

This cd is a marvel to hear ! The first 12 tracks presumably come from John Barrett tapes, and the rest is good-quality audio, taken from broadcasts, rehearsals and other sources…

Ravi Shankar - Improvisations (1962)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC+CUE+LOG -> 238 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 95 Mb
Full Artwork (web) (jpg) -> 3 Mb
© 1991 EMI / Beat Goes On | BGOCD115
Folk / International / New Age / Indian

Ravi Shankar, one of India's greatest performers and its leading musical ambassador, teams up with a mix of Indian and American jazz musicians on this interesting 1962 release. Known for his achievements in pure Indian classical music, Shankar … Full Descriptionis seen in a thrillingly different light on this early recording. Though Shankar had maintained interest in European and American art forms since roaming with his brother throughout France, sharing the stage with Western jazzmen was quite a departure for the sitar master.

Limited 96 CD set. Conductor, pianist, composer and media personality, André Previn excelled in a diversity of musical genres and idioms. A child prodigy in his native Berlin, he moved to the USA in 1939 and made his early career in Hollywood, winning four Academy Awards. His time as Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (1968-1979) established him as a major interpreter of symphonic repertoire, particularly Russian, French and British music - "The very definition of good conducting," wrote Gramophone of his celebrated LSO version of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker.