1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 13. Ravi Shankar – The Sounds of India (1957)

Buddy Holly may have been an inspiration to Lennon and McCartney, but sitar player Ravi Shankar was a big influence on their fellow Beatle George Harrison. And perhaps Crispian Mills of Kula Shaker several decades later. Hence, probably, his inclusion in this list. Harrison in turn helped Shankar gain more exposure in the West, leading to Shankar, and his daughter, becoming world famous performers of traditional Indian music. And so it goes. 

Handily, the first track on this album is Shankar giving is a little tutorial on how Indian music works (“Not just a Hindi jazz” despite the improvisational themes), which is good for context for the rest of the album. The one thing that the lesson reminded me of, though, was the Podling Dance from the original Dark Crystal – I wonder if the composer for that, because it blends all kinds of styles, mixed in a bit of Indian music theory. 

Near as I can tell, the raga is the theme played, and improvised, on the sitar, over a rhythm pattern played on the tabla, to give long jazz-like pieces, semi-improvised from set elements. So,really, apart from the specific sounds (including tuning and scales) used, it isn't a million miles from jazz, blues, or folk which all do something similar.

It’s an interesting album, for me it worked well as background music while I was doing something else and, as Shankar says in his introduction the best way to listen to the music is the just let it wash over you. It’s not like the blandly vaguely Indian-sounding stuff you get in Indian restaurants, it’s a lot more accomplished than that. I probably wouldn’t return to this very often, but I did enjoy it.