Ananda Shankar - Ananda Shankar (1970)
Ananda Shankar, nephew of world-famous sitar player, Ravi Shankar, never quite matched the success of his uncle, but made a significant impact in the '70s psychedelic underground scene by combining Western electronics and Indian music to create instrumental jams and moody soundtracks.The son of famous classical dancers caught the show-biz bug in the late '60s and traveled to Los Angeles, where he played with rock musicians (including Jimi Hendrix) at the pinnacle of the psychedelic movement. At age 27, he signed a deal with Reprise Records who released his debut self-titled album; a fusion cult classic that combined Hindustani music with psych-rock and included sitar-heavy versions of "Jumping Jack Flash" and "Light My Fire." After poor Stateside record sales, Shankar returned to India and began constructing 1975's Ananda Shankar and His Music, a blend of furious funk beats, keyboards, and traditional Indian instruments. From 1978 to 1981, he recorded five conceptual records: India Remembers Elvis (Indian versions of Elvis standards), A Musical Discovery of India (an endeavor financed by the Indian tourist board), Missing You (a dedication to his parents), the space-themed 2001, and the jungle safari-tinged Sá-Re-Gá Machán. In the mid-'90s, a new generation of DJs and musicians found an abundance of samples in his discography, and when Blue Note released the 1996 compilation album Blue Juice, Vol. 1 which featured two of his dance tracks, "Streets of Calcutta" and "Dancing Drums," a reawakened interest in his music led to a tour-slot in Peter Gabriel's Womad festival and another alongside Asian turntablist DJ State of Bengal. This collaboration resulted in 2000s Walking On, featuring Shankar's sitar virtuosity mixed with bachelor pad breakbeats and trip-hop. Sadly, he never saw the release of the album, due to a sudden heart attack at age 56. In 2007, Fallout Records reissued Ananda Shankar and His Music, with Sá-Re-Gá Machán with India Remembers Elvis tacked on as bonus tracks.
Sure, this record really isn't more than an exploitation of the crossover between psychedelic music and Eastern sounds, but that shouldn't detract anyone from listening to it in its entirety; in fact, that would be a huge mistake. The opener, the sitar- and Moog-soaked take on "Jumpin' Jack Flash," is performed perfectly, with every choice accent milked for maximum drama. Once the novelty of sitar-dosed covers of your favorite songs wears off, you really begin to notice how excellent the performances are on this record. Ananda Shankar manages to bridge the gap between kitsch and fine art on these tracks, from the opener all the way to the cover of "Light My Fire." One minute he is playing simple notes like it was taking the place of a guitar, at other times utilizing the full reign of the sitar's sound possibilities. The originals on the album follow an equally impressive path. The dreamy, hazy bliss of tracks like "Snow Flower" and "Mamata" is both meditative and slinky — light melodies with twisted atmospherics and tweaked Moogs. The drum breaks in the gurgling "Metamorphosis" are worth the price of the album alone. For the most part, the album rarely strays from the East-meets-West formula, with the Eastern rhythms getting the short shrift and the focus relying on Western funk and pop styles getting an Eastern makeover. Not that this is bad at all, but when the track "Sagar" ends, you realize that this record could have been much more than it was. This specific track guides the listener through a space/water odyssey over the course of 13 minutes. It's a slow build that gains momentum as the music progresses and flashes of acoustic guitar help the rhythm along. The final track is a great mixture of folk guitars that takes the focus away from the sitar for once, instead incorporating vocals and a chorus that manages to lock into a repeated chant that is the unexpected highlight of the album. (Jon Pruett, AMG)
A pioneering force behind the fusion of Eastern and Western musical traditions, Indian composer and choreographer Ananda Shankar was the son of renowned dancers Uday and Amala Shankar as well as the nephew of sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar. After studying sitar with Dr.Lalmani Mishra, he traveled to Los Angeles, earning international recognition with a 1970 self-titled release on Reprise which embraced both raga and psychedelia through the use of tabla and mridangam in conjunction with Moog synthesizers and electric guitars. Returning to India, Shankar subsequently created the mudavis, a kind of conceptual performance which presaged the multimedia innovations of the MTV generation in its combination of music, dance and visuals. In addition to scoring a series of films and television projects -- winning an Indian National Award for his efforts on the Mrinal Sen feature Chorus -- he composed a number of works for the dance troupe helmed by his wife, Tanusree; during the mid-1990s, Shankar's recordings became a common source of samples among West Coast rappers and Anglo-Asian drum-and-bass acts alike, and in 1998 toured Britain with State of Bengal. At just 56, he died of cardiac arrest in Calcutta on March 26, 1999; Walking On was posthumously issued on the Real World label the following year. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
Tracklist:
1 Jumpin' Jack Flash Jagger, Richards 3:35
2 Snow Flower Lewison, Shankar 2:49
3 Light My Fire Densmore, Krieger, Manzarek ... 3:32
Composed by: Densmore, Krieger, Manzarek, Morrison
4 Mamata (Affection) Lewison, Shankar 3:09
5 Metamorphosis Lewison, Shankar 6:50
6 Sagar (The Ocean) Lewison, Shankar 13:16
7 Dance Indra Traditional 3:53
8 Raghupati Folk Tune 3:28
Ananda Shankar - Ananda Shankar And His Music (1975)
This genre-busting, critically-acclaimed 1975 album seamlessly fuses the traditional music of Ananda Shankar's homeland, India, with the heavy psych-funk of the West, where he'd spent a good deal of time. Ananda Shankar & His Music is rife with funkified sitars, rock guitars, tabla, drums and Moog synthesizers. Featuring the dancefloor killers "Streets Of Calcutta" and "Dancing Drums" alongside a handful of mellower tracks, the original, India-only LP has long been one of the world's most sought-after records, and is presented here complete with historical liner notes.
To most people, "India's greatest musician" means Pandit Ravi Shankar, whose ragas briefly pacified the world in the tumultuous 1960s. And there are those who say Ravi's wife was better than he. But it was Ravi's nephew Ananda who became the voice of modern India in all its contrasting elements. In ways never previously imagined --much less executed even by other master musicians-- he alone merged Indian and western, classical and rock, lyrical and funky, exotic and commercial, traditional and progressive. Given the enormity of the task and the sharp contrast between his success and the failures of so many "raga rock" practitioners, Ananda Shankar can be seen as one of the greatest musical figures of the twentieth century.
The son of famous arranger-choreographer Uday Shankar & dancer Amala, Ananda had all of the expertise, talent, and perfectionists' dedication of the previous generation. He studied five years under Dr. Lalmani Misra, head of the Department of Music at Benaras Hindu University; following his intense tutelage, he spent two years abroad, where he studied western classical and pop as well as multi-media. While his ability to perform and compose rivalled that of his famous father and uncle, he identified more with his own generation.
His 1970 debut album on Reprise featured covers of tunes by the Rolling Stones and the Doors as well as his own (better) music. The album's success led to an expansion of his orchestra including dancers and multi-media effects. His wife Tanusree choreographed. After his first Indian LP was released, Ananda's music became a fixture on radio, television, and in theatre. Airlines, fashion shows, and the film industry recognized his as the modern sound of India. Even years after his death, his music can be heard at least on U.S. radio and in fashion shows, thanks largely to a reissue and a compilation.
Ananda was the great modernizer of Indian music, as influential as Mighty Sparrow and Kui Lee were in updating and promoting their respective traditions. He won the Indian equivalent of a Grammy Award for the score of "Chorus" in 1974. Other soundtracks featuring his work may have been released in India. Throughout his career, his sound remained fairly consistent, and his vision never flagged until his untimely death. Yet India and the world still have not completely caught on to his talent and significance.
Ananda Shankar & his Music became legendary in the 1990s simply because Capitol picked "Streets of Calcutta" and "Dancing Drums" for a Blue Note break-beat compilation. But there is plenty more material of the same caliber, even on that album. Later, rarer albums yield even more impressive music, and there are plenty of tracks waiting to be discovered and played by adventurous DJs. Sa-Re-Ga Machan, a funky, strange, and exotic madhouse ("Jungle King" even reprises "Streets of Calcutta" a bit), may be the true masterpiece.
The beat of the tabla is as vital to Indian music as the conga to African and Latin. While the Moog, sitar, and Western themes distinguish Shankar's music as fresh and original, the cacaphony of tabla beats grounds the music in simmering Bombay, timeless ragas, and the splendor of Shankar musical royalty. In other places, such as the Missing You tribute to Uday, Ananda uses vibes and flute to great effect. And still elsewhere the elements of Indian soundtracks, such as occasional female voice and strings, add power and excitement.
Call it futuristic exoticism or Indian soul music. Like other examples of the best revolutionary music, the wonders of Ananda Shankar will sound forever ahead of their time: definitely far out, and yet as familiar and comforting as Mom's cooking
My God! What a CD! This is a reissue of the classic 1975 LP Ananda Shankar and his Music, by - you guessed it - Ananda Shankar.
Ananda Shankar was Ravi Shankar's Nephew and was one of the first musicians to mix Indian music with western pop styles back in the 1960s.
Ananda Shankar and his Music expertly mixes 70s funky grooves with Sitar and Indian instruments and melodies to create (in places) what could almost be a Bollywood soundtrack meets Italian cop movie soundtrack. Well, it sounds like that to us anyway. Along with the fantastic up-tempo numbers, we also get treated to a few lovely tracks that are more on the chilled side. Another goodie!
Tracklist:
1. Streets of Calcutta
2. Cyrus
3. The Lonely Rider
4. The River
5. Vidai (Parting)
6. Back Home
7. Dawn
8. Renunciation
9. Dancing Drums
Ananda Shankar - A Life In Music (2006)
The nephew of Indian sitar legend Ravi Shankar, Ananda Shankar--though never the darling of Beatles and Stones--was an excellent sitar player in his own right. On these 22 tracks, recorded between the mid-1970s and the artist's death in 1999, Shankar fuses Indian ragas with a variety of Western pop/rock styles, often incorporating funk and psychedelia into the mix, as revealed on inventive, groove-laden tracks such as "Jungle Symphony" and "Charging Tiger."
Tracklist:
CD 1:
1. Jungle Symphony 3:38
2. Dancing Drums 5:24
3. Back Home 4:39
4. The River 3:07
5. The Alien 4:09
6. Charging Tager 4:10
7. Streets of Calcutta 4:41
8. Storm 5:21
9. Renunciation 4:27
10. Cyrus 2:45
11. Missing You 4:04
CD 2:
1. Anjali 6:02
2. Radha 5:39
3. Celebration 4:35
4. Namaskar 5:18
5. Discovery of India 4:11
6. Night in the Forest 3:58
7. Universal Magic 4:09
8. Exploration 4:15
9. Gypsy 4:55
10. Indrasabha 6:16
11. Rajput Bride 5:43
Ananda Shankar - Walking On (1999)
This is a very groovy release, in the true late-'60s/early-'70s sense of the word. Sitarist Ananda Shankar, the nephew of Ravi Shankar, has been blending Indian instrumentation with Western sounds for decades, using rock and jazz grooves as launching pads for some very inspired jams. His music was recently rediscovered by DJ and producer Sam Zaman, also known as State of Bengal. Zaman put together a group of crack musicians to work with Shankar. The project, as it was now called, appeared at WOMAD and toured up until the time of Shankar's death in March of 1999. There are some wonderfully retro sounds on this disc, as well as some uniquely forward-looking material. "Tori" is pure '60s spy-movie music, with its swirling flute and funky backbeat. If Mike Meyers decides to do a third Austin Powers movie, here's his soundtrack. The slow dance groove of the title track features lots of interplay between Shankar and veena player Dr. Gopal Shankar Misra over a tight drum and bass backdrop. Hopped-up flamenco, reggae, hip-hop, '70s funk, psychedelia, and even a little musique concrète make appearances on other tracks. It's all delivered with lavish abandon and a sense of fun. Dig it.
Tracklist:
1 Walking On Zaman 4:56
2 Tori Shankar 8:15
3 Pluck Zaman 6:39
4 Alma Ata Shankar 4:59
5 Jungle Symphony [live] Shankar 3:38
6 Betelnutters Zaman 6:20
7 Tanusree Shankar 6:08
8 Throw Down Zaman 5:29
9 Love & Passion Shankar 6:12
10 Reverse Zaman 6:50
11 Streets of Calcutta [live] Shankar 4:48