The mid 60s were a period when traditional, classical Indian music was becoming more visible (audible!) to Western audiences as an adjunct to the eastern mysticism embraced by public figures such as The Beatles - and George Harrison in particular.
The highest profile Indian musician of his generation was sitar player Ravi Shankar, who was instrumental in performing what we would call now "crossover", playing at pop music festivals as well as classical venues.
Violinist Yehudi Menuhin had been encouraging and promoting Indian music for many years before he learned to play it, and the inspired collaboration with Shankar for this 1966 EMI album was the culmination of his efforts. It won the 1967 Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance, and spent 18 weeks on top of Billboard's Best Selling Classical LP chart.
The back cover of the album has been scanned below - click to enlarge to read it - and the notes give the background to the music and the album.
The music in the video is Swara-Kākali. This is another outing for my Technics parallel tracker, this time with a Technics P22 cartridge sporting an SAS stylus from Japanese maker Jico, with it's "line contact" type profile. Being the last track on the LP side, it benefits from the minimisation of end-of-side distortion that is a feature of the straight-line tracking of linear arms.
Cartridge: Technics P22 with Jico SAS stylus
Phono amp: Graham Slee Accession
Turntable: Technics SL-QL1
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| Click to enlarge |
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