The Smiley Smile Message Board

is my passion .

some names for you to check out :

pandit pran nath (particularly raga malkauns on the album 'Midnight', both performances)

zia mohiuddin dagar (particularly raga panchamkauns on the 'great master of the rudra veena' album)

zia fariduddin dagar (particularly raga chandrakauns performed with zia on rudra veena)

shivkumar sharma (particularly raga kirwani on 'the inner path' album and raga antardhwani on 'the song within' album)

nikhil banerjee (particularly the 'afternoon ragas' album, especially the performance of raga bhimpalasi).

these are my favorites. if you like deep, contemplative, noble, profound, soul-stirring music ... check out any of those recommendations

story of how i got into indian classical music : 1) not through the beatles 2) not because i'm a hippy or link drugs and indian music together [i don't, indian classical is a profoundly sober musical tradition - intoxicants have no place in it - it is musical and divine intoxication]. i decided to find an album or performance and understand it, because it's an impenetrable musical system until you make that effort to understand it. then it revealed itself to me as a sublime form of music that resonated with me in a very deep way. i found that many ragas expressed strange emotions or states of human experience with celebration rather than repression. all aspects of human feeling and experience are covered in the various ragas. most of the ragas i suggested are either night ragas or afternoon-evening ragas. the moods are beautiful.

discuss

I'm way out of my element in this dicussion, first off. Also, don't hammer me for the Beatles connection but Ravi Shankar's tribute to George Harrison "Arpan," is just amazing. Fantastic.

I haven't heard it but I'll look into it.

If you like sitar - check out the Nikhil Banerjee album I recommended or his performance of Raga Malkauns (another of my favorites). Nikhil was a different sort of performer - entirely unknown compared Ravi but they had the same teacher. Their styles are so different that it displays just how comprehensive the knowledge of their teacher must have been to teach such different styles. I'd say Nikhil is much more traditional in his exposition of the ragas. His number one influence was a singer named Amir Khan who came from and upheld a very noble, dignified tradition. Hence Nikhil's renditions of the various pieces is often deeply emotional and he has not modified his performances to suit a new audience (it seems to me from Ravi's releases that he only gives a few minutes for the most important part of the structure of a raag - the alap or introductory section - so that no one gets bored!).

One thing I like about Ravi's playing though is what I've seen referred to as a machine-gun style. Ustad Vilayat Khan also plays like that a bit - sometimes giving such a thunderous, climatic touch to his performance that can be exhilarating to hear.

Thanks for the outstanding recommendations. I will explore. I love the Ry Cooder/V.M. Bhatt album, although I do not know if it anythink like the stuff on your list.

No problem Donny. I haven't heard that album but I've heard other stuff by Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. I have his "Samadhi" album which is good. I'm not a huge fan of his instrument though. It's alright in small doses but it doesn't even begin to approach the grave seriousness of something like a rudra veena.

Bhatt has a cousin called Krishna Bhatt who has released some pretty good albums. He plays sitar and maybe some surbahar. His best is a performance of Raga Kirwani with Zakir Hussein on an album called "Kirwani: Essence of a Raag". Technically it's a great performance, and very colorful. Gets a bit too fast and chaotic for my liking but once in a while it's good.