Jazz and Indian Classical Music

Many jazz musicians have derived inspiration from the music of the Indian subcontinent. However, most of them stopped short of the necessary immersion in the tradition which would have brought them to a grasp of Indian formal structures. By and large they are satisfied to noodle modally (sometimes with great inspiration to be sure) over vamp structures. But Indian listeners tend to find these extemporizations undisciplined.

Note that Hindustani music has no exact synonym for "improvisation." Rather, there are a variety of different types of "musical behavior" which involve spontaneous generation of musical lines -- but these behaviors are to be presented in a rough sequence of escalating musical intensity (i.e. slow lines for the most part precede fast lines, wide- ranging lines come after lines in a restricted range, complex rhythms come after simple rhythms, etc.).

Among the words used by Hindustani musicians to describe improvised musical behavior are ones which translate, roughly, as:

"development"

"spreading" (as in spreading a pat of butter over bread -- refers to taking a small amount of tonal material and systematically elaborating it over a long period of time)

"keeping happily occupied"

"playing games with different rhythms"

"sparkling"

With few exceptions the jazz players who've been involved in Hindustani music haven't done it long enough to really get the structural message involved; people who studied with a particular master for a year and claim to have a lock on the style are like folks who read the menu and claim to have eaten the meal. Well I've been studying the tradition of Hindustani classical music for last 15 years and every day I find there's still lot more I don't know!

The same holds true in reverse for Indian musicians who attempt work in a jazz context. Most of them couldn't tell Coleman Hawkins from Lester Young with a ten-foot pole -- and don't see what it has to do with their "fusion" experiments anyway.

Jazz players who want to work with Hindustani music need to know the streams of tradition and achieve at least minimal structural competence in "pure" performance (and be able to recognize structural elements as well as styles of performance). Indian players who want to work with jazz need to commit to the same level; while they may not need to do convincing improvisations on "Confirmation" they should at least be able to recognize Bird's sound, follow the logic of his improvisation, and have an intuitive sense of his place in the tradition.

This raises some interesting issues: what exactly should musicians engaged in "fusion" experiments attempt to get out of the music they're fusing? At one extreme, I believe Nicky Skopelitis (a Laswell-associated guitarist) has said that when he uses instruments from different musical traditions (baglama, saz, etc.) he's not trying to approximate the tradition at all, just to get a new sound that he can use in his music. This strikes me as a healthy approach. I also think great innovations can result from creative "misunderstanding" --Coltrane's Indian-influenced work may not have had much to do with Indian music, but it was important, and I believe Miles Davis said that he wanted the piano on Kind of Blue to sound like African thumb piano!!

Then there's the approach of playing with musicians who've been trained in other traditions--Evan Parker's "Synergetics" gives an example of this, with free- improvising musicians (many of whom now primarily do free improv, and not "traditional" music) who I believe have roots in South African, Sardinian, Tuvan, Korean, and jazz traditions--judging from the instruments if nothing else. McLaughlin's Shakti is probably a more obvious example.

What do you think about these different approaches?

Thank You Barnali Ji for yet another informative post 😊

Barnali Didi thanks for another great post.

Didi, here is my thoughts.


The cultural, plays a very important role and what we decide to make of the future. Music is often a barometer of the spirit of humankind and of how we are dealing with these trials and tribulations. Here are some reflections on music from some of these places and some thoughts on how music continues to offer hope and challenge.

In 1962, Shankar and Bud Shank, a jazz musician, released Improvisations and Theme from Pather Pachali and began fusing jazz with Indian traditions. Other jazz pioneers such as John Coltrane—who recorded a composition entitled 'India' during the November 1961 sessions for his album Live At The Village Vanguard (the track was not released until 1963 on Coltrane s album Impressions)—also embraced this fusion. George Harrison (of the Beatles) played the sitar, which he had learned from Shankar, on the song "Norwegian Wood" in 1965. Jazz innovator Miles Davis recorded and performed with musicians like Khalil Balakrishna, Bihari Sharma, and Badal Roy in his post-1968 electric ensembles. Other Western artists like the Grateful Dead, Incredible String Band, the Rolling Stones, the Move and Traffic soon incorporated Indian influences and instruments, and added Indian performers.

Though the Indian music craze soon died down among mainstream audiences, diehard fans and immigrants continued the fusion. Indian film and pop songs are finding their way into mainstream American music. Recently Indian pop has taken an interesting turn, with the 'remixing' of oldie songs from past Indian Film songs and adding new beats to them. Most of the Indian music, whether it be Filmi, Classical, Pop or Folk, still incorporates the eternal beats of India, making it one of few pop music cultures, that keep traditional beats and sounds even with the modernization of music.

EastJazz Intricate connections, cultural contradictions and coming home: the influence of Indian music in world music genres by Adrienne Redd

"For the better and finer enjoyment of Indian music, Western audiences should forget about harmony and counterpoint or the mixed tone colors... and relax rather in the rich melody and rhythm, and with the exquisitely subtle inflections through which the atmosphere of a Raga is built up." - Ravi Shankar, 1956

Indian-influenced music seemed to explode into western culture when George Harrison of the Beatles studied with Ravi Shankar in the 1960s, but avant-garde musicians and jazz performers had discovered the joy and versatility of classical Indian music long before. World and American music continue to draw heavily from Indian music because it offers potential found nowhere else. Jazz brims with connections and is about picking up themes and improvising on them. Similarly, the few Americans and Indians living in America and playing Indian-influenced fusions are interconnected. Members of this small circle know one another's names and influence one another's work. Warren Senders is one such musician. With his extravagant handlebar mustache, square embroidered cap, collarless shirt and serious, far away eyes Senders looks like a late-19th century Brit caught in the magnetic field of Asian subcontinent culture. Senders splits his physical life between Cambridge, Massachusetts and Pune, India. And he has given over his soul to Khayal, the vocal style of north Indian classical music, while contributing a bluesy bassline to the ragas he performs with six Indian partners playing violin, bansuri, flute, sitar, guitar, tabla and drums. (A raga is a melodic sequence with a minimum of five notes patterned in a fixed ascending and descending order - the aroha and avaroha.) Every artist yearns to experience a genre for the first time and to have that intoxicating wave of recognition, of coming home. Senders has a solid background in western music performance, theory and history, having studied four years with a tutor in Cambridge and two at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, but his first reaction to Hindustani music was one of inspiration and passion. "I said, 'God - this is what I've been hearing in my head.'" He elaborates, "The first piece that really turned me on was a piece of light music for an all-Indian ensemble composed by Ravi Shankar; it featured a vocal interlude performed by Laxmi Shankar. Subsequent to that, the music that excited me beyond all measure was an LP of Bhimsen Joshi performing Raag Marwa." Bhimsen Joshi is arguably the most significant living performer of Hindustani vocal music.

Seeming to allude to Hindu beliefs, Senders says that the first American incarnation of his band, Antigravity, took place from 1979 until 1983. Antigravity included saxophone (Phil Scarff), trombone, guitar, bass (Senders) and two drummers. Senders says, "It was a hot band!" He explained that it then dissolved and reformed, but that the American version of Antigravity is "on the back burner, but I do hope sometime in the next few years to put out a record with that ensemble as well." The current avatar of the band has released a new recording, Boogie for Hanuman (released Fall of 97 on Accurate Records). The CD consists of seven ragas composed by Senders and based on Hindustani religious text. Warren Sender's wife, Vijaya Sundaram, who performed on the first Antigravity CD and on all the cassettes, will also be on the forthcoming CD. She is a sitarist, singer-songwriter and composer who has released several cassettes of her own.

Wow !!! What an interesting and informative post.

To create a fusion of Hindustani and jazz...it is really important that the person attempting it has a thorough knowledge of both... the fusion point should be smooth and not jarring.

Thanks Didi for yet another great article. 👏

Barnali, thanks for a wonderful post.

While I am not too familiar with jazz, can I comment on fusion music here.

Last week, I attended a fusion concert of Dr. L. Subramanian, where he played the south Indian classical songs on his electric violin accompanied by Mridangam, ghatam, Tavil and keyboard, guitar, electric drums and saxaphone.

It was interesting, he played Conversations and it is something else to hear it live, he played Raag Mohanam in fusion and some other interesting peices from his old collections.

While I enjoyed myself throughly, I have to say I much prefer his Classical concert. In the fusion, the rich sound of his violin was somewhere lost with the saxophone, the keyboard and drums. I dont say the mix was bad, because for an appropriate mood, the fusion was brilliant, but it wasnt my cup of tea.

this is one video clip

Nadaka and The Basavaraj Brothers
Together, in concert, they offer us the fruit of their collaboration; Selections from their album "Living Colours" and other Ragas. Music, both soft and powerful, that breaks in all simplicity the barriers between musical styles

http://www.nadaka.com/living_colors.wmv

http://www.nadaka.com/living_colors.mp4

Nadaka, guitarist and composer of Canadian origin, has been living in India since 1974. His passion for Indian culture led him to study its music, learn different Indian instruments and vocal styles. He has conceived and built a guitar that allows him to produce sounds akin to those of the South Indian veena. While keeping his unique guitar style, inspired by Indian rhythms and Ragas, he carries us through his unique musical world that is both modern and rich in tradition.

The Basavaraj Brothers
In his time, Sudharshana Rao Basavaraj, a reputed flautist from Andhra Pradesh who had a great career playing for thousands of Indian film songs, had the wish that his children would grow up immersed in the great classical traditions of Indian music, both North Indian (Hindustani) and South Indian (Carnatic ). From birth, he chose their diverse instruments and at early ages gave them their initial musical training, later sending each of them across India to study with their respective musical gurus. Soon, their home in Chennai became a place where various musical disciplines (Gharanas) converged and met freely under one roof. And their name spread wide. As youngsters the Basavaraj brothers performed more than five thousand concerts throughout India, and with time, each became an acclaimed individual performer.

SAEED NAQVI

Friday , December 09, 2005

wide ANGLE

You may say they were dreamers

I wonder if the bead counting mendicants on the other side of Lakshman Jhoola in Rishikesh have any recollection (on the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death) of how their peace was shattered by the arrival of the Beatles in the spring of 1968, in search of a new label: holy singers from the hermitage.
This plot, the quest for a new, spiritualised image, was, I suspect, in John Lennon's head, whom I found the most secretive of the Beatles. The most candid was Ringo Starr: "its like a Butlin holiday camp!" he exclaimed within hours of having reach Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram, Chaurasi Kutia, or 84 huts. The next day he brought his spiritual quest to an abrupt end, packed up his bags and left. The most earnest about meditation, Indian music, particularly the sitar, was George Harrison who occasionally tried to draw Paul McCartney into the conversation with little apparent success.

This was the first wave of globalisation that I personally experienced, ensconced in my cubicle as a guest of the Maharishi (that's the story I shall tell on another occasion).

The Beatles were not the only musicians to have made their way to the Maharishi's ashram in Rishikesh. The Beach Boys, Donovan, Mike Horn and film stars like Mia Farrow and sister Prudence Farrow, lay for days, sunk in transcendental meditation. "Hush!" the Maharishi would whisper. "Prudence and the Beatles have been in continuous meditation for 36 hours." I was always a little sceptical of these feats which bordered more on physical endurance than spiritual experience.

The manifestation of the Beatles in a Hindu ashram has its genesis in a movement started in the US a decade earlier. While Jack Kerouac, the guru of the Beat generation, was writing and rewriting 'On The Road', his comrade, Allen Ginsberg, was spacing his marijuana trances with reverential trips to Varanasi in search of nirvana.

The Beatniks gave way to a surge of flower children in Haight & Ashbury, California. These flower children, disparagingly called the hippies, came to India and Nepal in droves, re-invented Goa and spilled over into the 'Hare Krishna, Hare Rama' hotels in New Delhi's Paharganj.

These impulses were being picked up at a more sophisticated level. Cross fertilisation between the East and the West, particularly in the musical field at a higher cultural level, was facilitated at the Edinburgh Festival in 1963. Lord Harewood, director of the festival, was a friend of Yehudi Menuhin, the great violinist, and Dr Narayana Menon, veena player and secretary, Sangeet Natak Akademi. It was Menon who introduced Ravi Shankar (sitar) and Ali Akbar Khan (sarod) to Lord Harewood. Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar made such an impact on the musicians and musicologists present in Edinburgh, that their performances imparted to Indian classical music an exceptionally high profile in western musical circles.

In some ways the appearance of the Ravi Shankar-Ali Akbar duet in the western musical world could be compared to the impact Satyjit Ray had on the world of cinema with the release of Pather Panchali in the mid-'50s.

The Edinburgh music festival was followed up by Yehudi Menuhin-Ravi Shankar sitar-violin duets. Menuhin, one of the greatest western musicians of all time, delving into Indian classical music and yoga, gave Indian culture a boost in the West it had not had in recent decades. The fillip given to this fusion by Menuhin, Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar attracted the attention of the Beatles, particularly George Harrison.

I still remember the Oblong Glass House in the Maharishi's ashram which served as Harrison's "sitar" room. A junior sitar player, claiming endorsement from Ravi Shankar, became Harrison's ustad. It was during these sessions that Harrison began to strum the notes of Raga Bageshwari. Not many Beatles enthusiasts around the world know that the Beatles classic 'Norwegian Wood' is actually stultified Bageshwari. That was as far as George Harrison could go in mastering the raga.

Ravi Shankar, on the other hand, saw in the unprecedented popularity of the pop culture spawned by the Beatles (and others) as an opportunity to penetrate a wider audience in the West. It was this calculation which caused him to accept a proposition Ravi Shankar has lived to rue. His accompanist on the tabla, Allah Rakha, told me he had nightmares after that performance.

The disastrous "non performance" was at Woodstock, the greatest pop jamboree ever. But, alas, it was too noisy for classical music. Worse, the flower children closest to the stage took their clothes off and proceeded to make love in the spirit of hippie freedom, even as Allah Rakha, closed his eyes and covered them with his hands.

On this, the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death, it is worth our while to remember the distinction between cultural "fusion" and cultural "confusion". Ravi Shankar at Woodstock represented the latter.

Originally posted by: egghatcher

extremely informative thread
Thank you Barnali, Qwest, Charade, SP(conversion not conversation 😆 ) SP u are invited to tea WITH MASALA NEXT TIME 😛
Does anyone recall the fusions between George Harrison and Ravi Shankar........ Sure the instruments were both stringed but hey presto!! such a homogenous fusion that was ........so i can appreciate how jarring it must be to a violin player like S. Priya to note undertone against the clarinets..
Thank you once again PT 😆 you come up with the best

Thanx MH. 😉😆

i remember the 4CD retrospective "In Celebration" that these two released. i think that was the starting of their professional union too. it was, if i not wrong on the 75th birthday of Pt Shankar. it also had a booklet on Pt Shankar with info in his career as a composer who had experimented wth fusing eastern and western music. later they released many more and all really worth listening to.

another new star who is doing really good fusion of eastern and western music is Rahul Sharma son of Pt Shiv Kumar Sharma. i like his fusions too. even they are homogenous and thus very soothing too.

basically i feel when fusion is done both side of the musical knowledge should be there. unless that is present yu won't get the homogenous fusion that MH 😉 is telling about.