. . . of travel? Of leaving home for something else? Is this not an urge to explore new things, to experience the exotic? Is that not obvious?
And so today I am thinking about the passing of Ravi Shankar. That I know so little of the man's oeuvre is beside the point. That Indian music has influenced me only in the most superficial ways is irrelevant. For all I know, he was not the greatest master of the sitar, but he was the player George Harrison sought out. He was the reference point for "Tomorrow Never Knows" for the Beatles and "Heart Full of Soul" for the Yardbirds.
The point is that it's quite possible that he achieved such a level of international fame because of the universal urge for the exotic, the unusual. Those British and American teens perfectly situated in their 1960s cultural upheavals and not-quite-post colonial ways seemed to have it all right there in Haight Ashbury and Piccadilly Circus, but all is never enough. Experience of the other is craved.
None of this speaks to the real merit of the real musician, who was in fact not exotic or unusual at all within the milieu of Indian music, and that observation brings things full circle. Once the initially exotic is understood as part of the general human experience, once it becomes no big deal, we all can move forward to a more healthy appreciation for it; we can cease treating it as a specimen.
Well, then. All these years of musical cross-pollination later, the real-deal Ravi Shankar looks merely masterful, not strange:
No comments:
Post a Comment