Ananda Shankar - Ananda Shankar (1970)

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