This is music straight from the ‘curry’ belt, and I must admit that I was more than surprised to find it included among the jazz releases for July. The mere fact that a record company has seen fit to recognise the obvious implications of this type of music makes it worth writing about on its own merits. First let me emphasise that this is not music for the purist, diehard jazz fanatic whose musical horizon is set around the limits of Dixieland. Secondly, it is highly formalised, despite the extent of improvisation enjoyed by the three musicians involved.
The technical possibilities offered by this Indian music are considerable. Ravi Shankar plays a sitar, a plucked string instrument which has movable frets, six main strings, and nineteen sympathetic strings which lie below the main ones. The complexity of the instrument, and its acoustic potential, makes even the most highly developed electric guitar look and sound like a nursery toy. The accompanying instruments are a tamboura, a five-stringed instrument which is plucked to produce a sort of harmonic drone, and the tabla, a pair of hand drums which are played with the fingers. The improvisations achieved by Ravi Shankar are far advanced from those heard in jazz, even allowing for the fact that most oriental music is based on quarter tones, and that the sitar is retuned within the space of a single raga. Rhythmically the scope is just as wide and varied, and great play is made of shifting tempi and acceleration in climaxes.
To my untrained ear, there is a monotonous element which even the fascination and beauty of the sitar improvisations cannot completely overcome, but there is always a vital air of excitement which demands one’s complete attention. This, to me, is part of the fascination of the music, which has its close parallels with jazz, yet never overlaps them in the full sense of the word.
Discography
Raga Puriya Dhanashri; Raga Charu Keshi (25 min) – Kafi-holi; Dhun; Mishra Piloo, in Thrumi style (23½ min)
Ravi Shankar (sitar); Chatur Lal (tabla); N. C. Mullick (tamb).
(Fontana TL5253 12inLP 33s. 1d.)
