Legendary sitarist Ravi Shankar’s Encinitas home lies
nestled in between narrow and winding streets, but the towering
residence provides a beautiful view of Northern San Diego’s
rolling hills, allowing the perfect combination of intimacy and
expansiveness.
“I’ve spent more years here (in California) than
anywhere else outside India, because I love this place, especially
the climate,” he said.
At 82 years old, Shankar has traveled extensively throughout the
world and has observed it with keen perceptiveness, but it’s
only fitting that he find an intimate connection with the first
country he helped musically educate. It’s also fitting that
he still speaks with vigor and enthusiasm about the mission that
brought him to the United States almost 50 years ago.
“I’m glad to see that Indian music is now having a
very important part in the culture of the United States, and all
over the world for that matter,” he said. “In a number
of different campuses there are classes for Indian music, which
proves that there’s so much more interest now, much more
understanding and appreciation.”
Shankar is no longer the Woodstock-playing superstar he was in
the mid-’60s, only because his music is now less
superficially ingrained into the American subculture.
While the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” hinted at
the opening of doors to Eastern culture, the hippie
generation’s association with drugs to Indian music always
irritated Shankar as he believes his music should be enjoyed on its
own merits. His autobiography “Raga Mala” details times
when he would get so angry at an audience’s disruptiveness
that it would force him to stop in the middle of performances.
“Whatever you’re free to do, you’re
intelligent enough to do without destroying yourselves, your health
and your brain,” he said. “At least don’t use
(drugs) for music, that is the thing I have always said.”
Still, from disciples like George Harrison, Shankar sensed a
serious desire from Western youth to explore and understand the
richness of Indian music. Shankar found an audience, and he was
quick to take advantage of it through performances and lectures. He
even spent a period teaching a few classes at UCLA.
“Some very great (Indian) musicians have come before,
also, but they could not make the contact,” Shankar said.
“I was very lucky because having been with my brother for
almost eight years all over Europe and America, I could understand
and communicate the difference between Western and Indian
music.”
But just as he says that there is no end to mastering the sitar
and Hindustani music, Shankar continues to educate younger
generations, and his 21-year-old daughter Anoushka. Only recently
has Anoushka started to play on her own, though she still
accompanies her father at his performances.
“I always find myself well-connected to the young people,
starting from the mid-’60s to today,” Shankar said.
“Anoushka, being young and of today, is naturally a great
attraction for young people. But even in my 82nd year I feel the
same way. I always have had such a wonderful young audience
everywhere, along with middle aged people as well.”
Shankar has since cut down on his touring, playing about 10 to
20 shows per year. Now it’s Anoushka who has been touring
relentlessly in countries all over the world. After playing the
sitar at age nine under the urging of her mother, she has already
released two solo albums, with another one scheduled for recording
next summer.
Her first major test, however, was a completely spontaneous
affair, as she played in place of her ill father in Spain during
the summer of 2001.
“It was a question of either cancelling the show or having
me substitute, and the sponsors chose to have me substitute,”
Anoushka said. “Which is pretty crazy, because it was not
just me doing a show, it was me playing when people expected him. I
had to make them happy on my own.”
The shows were a success, and now Anoushka is simultaneously
dealing with her rigorous touring schedule and her own evolution as
a musician.
“Instrumentally I’m still very much in my
father’s style. My brain’s been trained to play his
style of music,” she said. “But creatively I seem to be
going in a different place. I’m working on the ideas of my
new album and meeting people that I want to work with. And
it’s going somewhere completely different. It’s not
going to be like my other classical albums.”
Growing up in London and spending her high school years in
Encinitas, Anoushka’s musical tastes range from Massive
Attack to underground Goa trance. Anoushka’s love for music
outside the Indian classical style similarly mirrors her
father’s musical reach.
“The creative aspect (is as important as) the traditional
aspect of our music,” she said. “So when I’m
learning with my father, for example, he’s teaching me old
compositions as much as he’s composing on the spot. He
happens to be one of the most creative musicians in the world, so
it’s kind of endless, there’s always more that he can
teach me.”
Though Ravi Shankar has seen Indian music exploited for
superficial means as part of trendy “world music,” he
refuses to stay close-minded about experimenting with different
methods.
“If you are talking about fusion and all these new
attempts by different people I have only one thing to say
““Â as long as it is not a gimmick, as long as it is not
just something new to sell the record, it’s OK,” he
said. “Thousands of people are trying to do that all over the
world. And sometimes it is popular for one month, sometimes for one
year, and then you forget.”
If there’s one way to express the significance of
legendary sitarist Ravi Shankar to the musical world, it lies in
his conviction to progress and look forward while still staying
grounded in tradition and the past. It’s something he still
shows; even in the piece he wrote for this past April’s
Rainforest Foundation Benefit, dedicated in part to dear family
friend, the late George Harrison.
“My dad composed a very beautiful piece kind of based on
the first raga that Uncle George had learned from him,” said
Anoushka, who performed the work at a benefit. “It was a nice
thing to do in his memory.”
Ravi and Anoushka Shankar perform at Royce Hall at 8 p.m.
tonight.