Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass - Passages (1990)

This beautiful album is another project of Private Music, the Peter Baumann's company in the 80's and early 90's. It is an interesting complement to Tana Mana (see below).

Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar met for the first time in Paris in 1965. Philip Glass was studying music with Nadia Boulanger, Ravi Shankar was recording a score for Chappacqua, the movie of Contard Rook. Philip Glass was earning pocket money doing notation and was assisting the sound engineer in the studio where Ravi Shankar recorded his sitar parts.

Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass spoke together, and Shankar answered many questions about Indian classical music and raga compositions.

This 1990 collaboration was a way to push this early dialogue a step forward. Passages is a rare instance of classical music reciprocity, each composer presenting thematic materials to the other as raw material from which the finished pieces were fashioned. Passages offers two Glass compositions on themes by Shankar, two Shankar compositions on themes by Glass as well as one piece from each composer completely of his own devising.

Links: mp3 / 320

RSPG1.zip

RSPG_2.zip

password: olduvai

The Ravi Shankar Project - Tana Mana (1987)

This album was released on Private Music, the record company founded by ex-Tangerine Dream Peter Baumann in the '80s (see Sanford Ponder's post below). And Peter Baumann was one of the producers of this album, with Frank Serafine and Ravi Shankar himself. 

Tana Mana is not an album of classical Indian music, but rather an experimentation in fusion and in world music, mixing Eastern and Western sounds and traditions. Tana Mana means "body and mind", and it could be a key to discover this album where Indian sitar meets digital samplers and synthesizers. 

Among the musicians involved into this album, George Harrison (auto-harp and synthesizer), Frank Serafine (vocals), Patrick O'Hearn (bass), Al Kooper (guitar). Lakshmi Shankar is credited for vocals, while other Indian musicians are credited for sarod, sitar, tablas, tanpura and other percussions.

Tana Mana could be considered as a pioneering step in the history of world music and world beat, and it displays Ravi Shankar's unique sitar playing skill at his best as well as  his musical open-mindedness.

 

link: mp3/320

RSTM.zip

password: olduvai