The Whole Music Experience

World   Ravi Shankar   The Best of...   Arc Music I’m sitting here listening to Raga Mian Ki Malhar which tells a story in a way about the roots of India’s musical dynasty.  Each Indian classical raga corresponds with a season, time of day, or mood.  This particular raga, which moves at a slow to medium pace, represents the rainy season and I’m thinking about the appropriateness of listening to a monsoon raga as I watch late winter rain fall here in the Pacific Northwest.  My mood matches this raga’s sentiments, but at least the late Ravi Shankar gives such a fiery performance on the compilation The Best of Ravi Shankar that by the end of th is raga (which does pick up speed and intensity in the way that a stream picks up velocity to become a raging river), I feel invigorated.     I’m not a Ravi Shankar or Indian classical music scholar, but I'm someone who enjoys international music on a regular basis and who has...

Ravi Shankar & Tanmoy Bose The Living Room Sessions, Part 1 East Meets West Music/Harmonia Mundi Release: April 10, 2012 It’s not every weekend I get to sit down and listen to new ragas performed by a 91-year old master musician.   Pandit Ravi Shankar turns 92 this month and his raga performances sound equally fiery as they do thoughtful and tender.   The master Indian classical musician gives the impression in his liner notes that The Living Room Sessions was a casual get-together with his friend tabla player Tanmoy Bose, but even one listen to this recording and we can hear the formalities of the Indian classical music tradition shining forth.  “This rather a different recording when, at almost 92-years, I was fooling around at home in Encinitas.” Also in the liner notes, “... Raga Malgunji has both a slow Vilambit gat and a display in Jhaptal of ten beats in complicated, rhythmic patterns and finishes that conveys sadness the sadness of not bein...