Ravi Shankarwas, without doubt, the “godfather of world music,” as former Beatle George Harrison once proclaimed. But this quietly charismatic Indian music legend,who was 92 when he died Tuesdaynight at a La Jolla hospital, was much more than that.
During a remarkable career that began when he was only 10, this three-time Grammy Award winner changed the world of music in ways that were both subtle and historic.
An Encinitas resident since 1992, he spent more than 60 years of his life as a vital cultural ambassador — a singular link between East and West, age-old tradition and cutting-edge innovation, the earthy and the mystical.
In the process, Shankar profoundly inspired listeners around the world and scores of rock bands, from The Beatles and The Byrds to Pearl Jam and Metallica. His influence extended to contemporary classical composer Philip Glass and jazz saxophone icon John Coltrane, both of whom — like longtime friend Harrison — studied with him.
A soft-spoken master of the 19-stringed sitar, Shankar is the only artist to have performed at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, Woodstock in 1969 and (with close friend Harrison and Bob Dylan) the charity fundraising “Concert for Bangla Desh” in 1971.
“My dad’s music touched millions of people,” said multiple-Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Norah Jones, one of Shankar’s two daughters. “He will be greatly missed by me and music lovers everywhere.”
Among those millions were Shankar’s remarkably diverse artistic collaborators. Over the years, they ranged from famed French flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal and Russian cello legend Mstislav Rostropovich to film director Richard Attenborough and big-band drum giant Buddy Rich. Attenborough’s epic movie, “Ghandi,” saw Shankar earn a 1982 Academy Award nomination for Best Score.
Shankar is prominently featured in the second part of Martin Scorsese’s recent George Harrison documentary, “Living in the Material World.” In the 1970s Harrison’s Dark Horse record label released several albums by Shankar, who regarded the former Beatle as a son.
More significant are the many musicians, Harrison included, who looked up to Shankar as a musical father. David Crosby, who introduced The Beatles to Shankar’s music during a mid-1960s Los Angeles tour stop by the Fab Four, hailed the sitar dynamo as “the finest musician on the planet.”
Champion of Indian music
Ravindra Shankar Chowdhury was born in the Indian city of Varanasi on April 7, 1920. Born into a family of musicians and dancers, he began touring the world at the age of 10 as a dancer in a troupe led by his older brother, Uday. By 15 he was one of the troupe’s stars and made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 1932.
It was then that Shankar met Gertrude Stein and Henry
Miller, and he fondly recalls hanging out with Cab Calloway and other jazz greats at the famed Cotton Club in Harlem.
“Starting off as a dancer was absolutely an advantage,” Shankar told the U-T in one of more than half a dozen interviews he did since moving with his family to Encinitas in 1992. (All of his quotes in this appreciation are from those interviews.)
“Rhythm is such a vast world. If you say raga, or melody, it doesn’t express the whole thing. hat interests me is all these metric patterns, or csanda, such as:Boom-ba-do-bomp, ba-da-do-bimp, biddi-biddi-boom-ba, diddi-diddi-boom. . . . It’s all in (cycles of) threes. But there are little patterns you can bring out, and dance has a lot to do with that. It gave me a lot of insight.”
Six years later, after living in Paris, Shankar returned to India, gave up his worldly possessions and began intensively studying music and the sitar. In the early 1950s he began touring abroad.
In 1956 he signed his first U.S. record deal with World Pacific, a California-based jazz label. The pairing made sense, since jazz buffs were quick to appreciate his dazzling improvisational skills, expressive depth and pinpoint dynamic control. A decade later, The Beatles helped introduce Shankar to myriad young listeners.
“I find that people who like jazz and rock have no problems (with Indian music),” he observed. “The ones who have trouble are the people who listen with their heads. Once you let your emotions take over, it’s much better. Listen with your heart.”
Indian classical music posed a world of challenges for Western listeners with its unfamiliar forms, intricate rhythms, unusual timbres and use of constant background drones.
With a combination of astonishing skill, patience and tenacity, Shankar won over new audiences. But it was not an easy task.
“I was lucky; I was the first Indian musician who had the opportunity to know the Western mind,” Shankar recalled. “I heard people complain that our music is very long and goes on and on, and that it sounds like —Meow, meow!— like a cat.
“They always said it was very `esoteric’ and ‘ethnic.’ The word ‘ethnic’ I always fought, because it put Indian music in the same category as Aboriginal music or local music of different countries. But Indian classical music is the only classical music, along with Western classical music, that is a living art. It started taking form 2,000, 2,500 years ago, and it is an oral tradition. But it is a living art that continues to evolve.”
In 1967, perhaps because of his higher visibility fueled by The Beatles, Shankar performed at the Monterey Pop Festival. He was a distinct part of a lineup that included Jimi Hendrix, Grateful Dead, The Who, Otis Redding, Jefferson Airplane, The Byrds and Simon & Garfunkel.
Concerned that the audience of thousands of hippies would be less attentive — and, perhaps, more stoned — if he performed in the evening, as planned, Shankar insisted that he instead play an afternoon set at Monterey, with no opening act. He delivered a four-hour set of heady music, filled with waves of instrumental tension and release. Photos from the festival show Hendrix, Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia and other budding rock idols watched him with rapt attention from the audience.
‘Woodstock killed me!’
In 1969 Shankar was the only classical musician from any country to perform at Woodstock. The festival helped propel such young acts as Santana and The Who to superstardom. But Shankar’s Woodstock experience was less positive.
“Woodstock killed me!” he recalled with a laugh last year at his Encinitas home.
“There were half a million people and it was raining, and the music was like incidental music. They were enjoying it, but I couldn’t communicate (to them). At the end, I said: ‘No more.’ I had so many programs lined up, big concerts and (festivals). I canceled everything, killing my whole career for almost a year and a half. Then I slowly came back into classical music.”
Shankar’s death Tuesday came only six days after he had heart-valve replacement surgery on Dec. 6 at Scripps Memorial Hospital. He had undergone heart surgery more than once in previous decades and found it difficult to play for some time after a 2005 bout of pneumonia greatly restricted his movement in his left shoulder.
But this tireless champion of Indian music and culture never lost his ion for his work. Nor did he lose the drive that — up until this year — saw him devote up to 16 hours a day to practicing and improving his craft.
It was an unending quest, as Shankar acknowledged at the Encinitas home he moved to 20 years ago with his second wife, Sukanya, and daughter Anoushka, a graduate of San Dieguito Academy who is now 31.
“I hate to use the word ‘mastery,’ because I have not been able to master it yet,” Shankar said, referring to both the deviously difficult sitar and the Indian classical music traditions to which he devoted his life.
“It takes a very long time, because you don’t have any visual help, like the written scores in Western classical music. Indian classical music is an oral tradition, and you have to memorize thousands of things — compositions, melodic forms, rhythmic cycles. It’s like feeding a computer. And then, after you learn all that, a performer can go on his own, when he is ready, and improve over the years. We learn as we go along.”
A member of India’s parliament
In 1945, Shankar wrote the score for the groundbreaking “India Ballet.” From 1949 to 1956, he was the musical director of All-India Radio, with which he dramatically expanded the parameters of Indian orchestral music. His film scores for famed Indian director Satyajit Ray’s acclaimed “Apu Trilogy” in the 1950s earned international acclaim.
Shankar was so revered in India that the country’s president made him a member of the upper house of the Indian Parliament, a position Shankar held from 1986 until moving here in 1992.
More recently, on Wednesday — just one day after his death — Shankar was named one of the six recipients of the 2013 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. On Dec. 4, it was announced that Shankar had beennominated for a Grammy for Best World Music Album.His daughter Anoushka, who learned to play the sitar from her iconic father, is nominated in the same category. Tuesday, the same day he died, saw the release of “Ravi Shankar – Tenth Decade In Concert: Live in Escondido,” a DVD of his memorablelate 2011 concertat California Center for the Arts, Escondido.
Ravi and Anoushka Shankar most recently collaborated at a Nov. 4 concert in Long Beach, where he delivered sublime musicianship despite requiring supplemental oxygen to breathe. It was the latest — and now, sadly, final — chapter in his storied performance career and yet another demonstration of his dedication to music.
Shankar’s legacy will live on, both in his own music and in the increasingly stellar work of his daughter, Anoushka, who in barely a decade has become an internationally acclaimed composer and sitar star in her own right.
Her proud father and mother were in the audience when Anoushka led her Indian-music-meets-flamenco fusion band here at the Balboa Theatre in April. Playing in front of her legendary dad was daunting, Anoushka itted, even though they had been performing concerts together around the world since she she was in her teens.
“It is intimidating,”Anoushka saidin an April U-T interview, “at this point slightly less so than before, but not much. He’s the master of the instrument I play and the style I play, so to have him in the audience — foranyone— can be really nerve-wracking.
“And he’s also my father and teacher, so it matters (even more) and you really care. I’ve learned to turn that into an inspiration, because you want to do your best (for him).”
As important as music was to him, Shankar’s family helped sustain him years longer than any doctors might have predicted. A famously strict teacher, he always spoke of Anoushka with infectious pride, praising her at any given opportunity.
And, when asked at his home last year to what he attributed continuing to be so active at the age of 91, Shankar beamed.
Her!” he said, pointing to his loving wife, Sukanya. “I would not be here without her. She’s a better doctor for me than all of my doctors. In fact,theycall her ‘Doctor.’ ”
On stage and off, Shankar had a self-effacing personality and a sly wit. The joy he derived from making music was as palpable as the deep spirituality that fueled his life.
“The whole theory in our music is about nine principal moods: tranquility, peace, ion, humor, love, devotion, anger, fear and disgust,” Shankar noted. “People wonder how can we express (all) that in instrumental music, but we do.
“Religion, whether Muslim, Hindu or Christian, is not such an important factor. It is more the spiritual depth of understanding and good will. (With the effects of) great music, it is not a matter of seeing God in front of you, but feeling godliness within you. That is the highest thing I’ve experienced myself, as a performer and as a listener…
“I always aspire for something I can see, but haven’t reached. Being a performer makes it doubly frustrating, because I have ideas for new orchestral pieces and ballets I want to write. I have lots of ideas buzzing in my head, which I have not been able to (execute) yet.
“Believe me, I am still searching. And I feel I am just getting glimpses of some very divine light while I am performing. It’s not that I have to think about it, but I always discover new things, and it is such a thrill.”
