Word: sitar
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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RUBBER SOUL (Capitol). Ringo playing an organ? George plunking a sitar? Paul crooning in French? George Martin rattling off baroque piano riffs? The Beatles are becoming more sophisticated as they concentrate on soul music, and their eleventh album is selling even better than the other...
...Indian gentleman must be able to mix a very dry martini and in the next, very dry breath interpret the intricacies of a raga (a traditional Hindu melody) played on a sitar (like a guitar). His wife must not only be pretty, but be able to frug in a sari while folding her hands in the traditional greeting of namaste. His home must be decorated in the best Western decor, but carry at least one careful Indian touch-perhaps a Mogul miniature or a divan with a brightly colored, hand-loomed bolster from the Punjab. Clubs are one British social...
...Oriental rug onstage. The audience at the University of Pennsylvania's Irvine Auditorium last week was equally exotic-a curious mingling of Indians in turbans or saris, bearded jazz musicians, leather-jacketed beatniks and college students. Racing his spidery fingers across the steel strings of his sitar, Ravi Shankar invoked a whining chorus of quavering, sensuous melodies in intricate interplay with the shifting, galloping cross-rhythms of the tablet (drums). Soaring above the metallic drone of an unfretted lute called a tamboura, Shankar finished in a furious display of virtuosity that brought a cheering ovation from the audience...
...dozen years, through a series of recordings and globe-girdling tours, Shankar has proved to jazz fans that his improvisational flights have an exciting kinship to modern jazz. Joy, Eroticism. Part of the appeal is the extraordinary range of sounds that can be coaxed out of the awkward- looking sitar, from deep guttural sighs to piercing cries. Fashioned 700 years ago, the sitar has six or seven playing strings, 19 "sympathetic" resonating strings, so sensitive that they must be retuned while being played, and two bulbous gourds at either end for sound boxes. Shankar's sitar artistry has influenced...