Ravi Shankar Birthday Tribute

TODAY, April 7th, is the birthday of our legendary guru the late
Pandit Ravi Shankar (1920-2012).

As Gandhi was for us in the high ground of the moral universe and Tagore was in the realms of exquisite poetic imagery and song, Ravi Shankar was for the sublime and effervescent abstraction of music!  Panditji's art was a reflection of the world around him, deep and rich, full of wonder, quiet, still and timeless as if communicating from an ancient era long forgotten.  Simultaneously, the sound is still so fresh and alive, pulsing, dancing and bubbling over with joyous playful abandon.

An approach sophisticated and complex, yet profoundly simple in its impact on the psyche.  With uncompromising adherence to the highest standards of classical raga purity, yet he was highly innovative, always creative and different every time.  Expanding the limits of technique and skillfulness at the same time full of emotional soulfulness.  A complete music which through it all he exuded love... Love for life.  Love for others and Love for God. 


Jai guru, we miss you!  Listen to our KPFK radio tribute from December here opening with a sound collage of Raviji's music and voice relating the spiritual context of raga music.

Raviji's beautiful Ahir Bhairav

As we mourn the loss of our dear guru and ambassador of music and peace to the world, all we have left is sweet memories and this sublime music.  Enjoy this classic recording morning raga recording of Ahir Bhairav from 1956, as fresh now as it was then!  

 

From 'Three Ragas' LP issue.. buy the album here! 

Manj Khamaj Jugalbandi

This is such a beautiful and interactive manj khamaj, from Khansaab's signature Series #4, if you like this track buy the album!

Raga Bhatiyar

Here is Bhatiyar, from our newly released cd, an evocative morning raga with a masterful lighter treatment in deepchandi (14 beats) tala from Hom Nathji. 

This is the final track on our Sadhana cd, devotional morning ragas.  

The main raga of the cd is the bittersweet Nat Bhairav in full development, alaap and jor (sitar solo) and vilambit and drut teental.

Enjoy first thing in the morning... for meditative waking moments or chillasana with a cup of yerba mate, coffee or chai!

Buy the Sadhana cd or download tracks here.

Shyam Kalyan from live cd

This is an excerpt of the evening raga Shyam Kalyan, gat in rupak tal (7 beats), from our last house concert with Hom Nathji here in Highland Park at the Raga Jazz Freegan House.

This live cd is now available, featuring Raga Shyam Kalyan and a Kirwani Raga Mala. We are releasing it to raise funds for a run of 2000 discs of our Sadhana cd of morning ragas to be released in March in anticipation of the North American Tour. If you're interested in the cd please contact us through here!

Hom Nathji and I will be performing a pair of fundraising concerts to be held on February 18th in Thousand Oaks and 19th in Highland Park,
More info about performances here!

Christmas Raga

I hope you all rang a most glangarific Christmas and/or whatever other Holy-days you partake in. I wanted to share this Christmas Raga I recorded this morning… enjoy!

May we raise up love and solidarity for all our brothers & sisters around our city, the country and the world even more in 2012, maybe this will be the year where we see real change come to fruition. - Paul Z

Christmas is the feast of the divine explosion, the love of God revealed in the poverty of Christ. ~ John Main

Winter World Tour & India

I have just returned from a tour around the world performing Indian classical music in Nepal, India, Czech & Germany. The entire trip was a beautiful experience culminating a year of touring starting last spring which included three trips up and down the west coast and Mexico.

I would say the highlight of the journey was Varanasi, where I played 4 concerts in one week including a beautiful temple concert just above the ganga and a program at Benares Hindu University (the largest residential University in Asia) for the music students and renown faculty of the performing arts department.

After 5 trips to India, I am so thankful to God to be able to spend time in Varanasi, performing, having fellowship with the great diversity of music lovers and spiritual seekers from all over the world and yes... of course walking, boating and bathing in the ganga! Here's a shot from a boat of temples on the ghats of the ganges in the sacred city of Varanasi last month.

This is a shot from the River Ashram there playing with a great young tabla player, Hari Om.



This shot is on a house boat the morning I left went after a sunrise sitar concert on the Ganga! See the complete Newsletter here on my website with more pics and concert video as well.

Swapanda & Paul from spring birthday concert for Raviji

This is a live recording of Pt. Swapan Chaudhuri & Paul Livingstone performing this past April. This is a live recording of Raga Malaya Marutam, a raga of Carnatic (South Indian origin), that Panditji (Ravi Shankar) popularized in his style.

We closed the birthday concert in April on guruji's 90th with the great honor of playing my first entire concert with Swapanda.

Tilak Shyam ~ alaap

Alaap introduction for our latest release 'Tilak Shyam' a raga created by Ravi Shankar in 1948, performed by 4 disciples of Raviji.



Paul Livingstone ~ sitar
Pedro Eustache ~ bansuri
Partho Sarothy ~ sarod
Barry Phillps ~ cello

Tilak Shyam ~ drut gat

The Arohi Ensemble on this track features 6 virtuoso musicians, including leading artists from India, the US & Venezuela.



Paul Livingstone ~ sitar
Pedro Eustache ~ bansuri
Partho Sarothy ~ sarod
Barry Phillips ~ cello
Abhijit Banerjee ~ tabla
Somnath Roy ~ ghatum

Arohi page online

Check out the Ravi Tribute page!

Blessing

For Shplang Ensemble students!!!

Listen of the recording of Blessing to learn & practice along everyone. You can see the lyrics here in the South Indian language of Tamil! This is Geetha Bennett singing, who's playing a veena concert for Sangeet on Sat 16th!

Remember Sunday class is at 1:30 this week!
We'll see the Friday class at 6:30 please be on time everyone frmo here on out & don't forget to tell family and friends the concert is on Sunday, June 27th, 3pm!
- paulZ

Sarve Shyam

recorded by Pt.Ravi Shankar

Yale Lecture introduction

Intro to music lecture at Yale University this past October, talking a bit about my background and concepts of Indian Raga Music. This next post is musical!

Alaap in Shudh Sarang - Yale Music Lecture

This is part of a lecture performance given in Professor Sarah Weiss world music class this fall at Yale. Music is interspersed with commentary on the development of raga in the 3 movements of alaap, jor, jhala.

A Way of Truth

The loss of self consciousness enables us to come to full consciousness. The simple tool is we must stop thinking about ourselves. when we say the mantra with an undivded heart then we are on our way. - John Main

Lahn Al Mughtarebin (Immigrant Song)

Wael Kakish & friends this Friday 9/25 night at Throop Church, 300 S Los Robles in Pasadena (corner of Del Mar) in Sangeet Series Concert.

This improvisation on oud (Arabic fretless lute) & derbekki (Arabic goblet drum) is featured on the Salaam Suite cd, this track features Wael & Faisal Zedan on percussion.

Not U Not I (for SHPLANG Ensemble)

Here's a raga rock tune we going to jam shplangers! Check it out...

My Child (for SHPLANG Ensemble)

Listen and practice along... this tune 'My Child' is from my 'Salaam Suite' cd. It is played in a Irish folk feel but based on a simple South Indian raga scale, called Shugamugapriya (sat that 10 times!).

Sa Ga Ma Pa Dha Sa
1 3 4 5 6 1

Indian music Paul's story: LA Times online

This music video by Irfan Khan just went up on LA Times.com, it gives a short journey about my path in Indian and creative world music. This 2 minute piece touches on cross cultural work, teaching, and music as a transcendent force.

new music ~ raga meditations & live concert downloads

Check out these new tracks available. Click on titles for previews. The alaap tracks are solo raga meditations on sitar. Dev Ghandar is a rare raga I learned from my guruji, sarod maestro Pt. Rajeev Taranath & Nat Bhairav is a popular morning raga in a devotional mood. The Vatchaspati (a raga of South Indian origin) tracks are from my live cd, and feature tabla accompaniment by Abhijit Banerjee.

Peloraga is 3 moevment ragajazz piece inspired by the counterpoint of gamelan and western chamber music, this track from the forthcoming Arohi record and features myself on sitar, Pedro Eustache on bansuri & flute, Peter Jacobson on cello, Abhijit Banerjee on tabla and Dave Lewis on drums. Enjoy!

Parameshwari radio concert/interview

Live performance & interview by John Schneider at KPFK's for the Global Village show, Sep 18th, '08.

This performance and discussion live on air features (left to right) Shashanka Bakshi on tabla, Partho Sarodi on sarod myself on sitar.

This 36min program is mostly a live performance of Pt. Ravi Shankar's devotional morning raga known as Parameshwari.

Between movements of the raga we discuss the aspects of alaap, jor & gats played in rupak tala (7 beats) & teental (16 beats). Parameshwari is a six note raga omitting the fifth note, keeping the drone on the tonic & fourth notes.

Sa (C) Re (Db) Ga (Eb) Ma (F) Dha (A) Ni (Bb)

Shashanka, Partho & John in KPFK's historic Studio A.
Photos by Jaeger Smith.

Maru Bihag ektal

Some music from our California & Mexico tour. This 4 minute excerpt of an evening raga known as Maru Bihag from Grass Valley Concert features improvisation on a theme in ektal (12beats).

India/US Jugalbandi

INDIA/US Jugalbandi Ensemble at Grass Valley Center for the Arts

Abhijit Banerjee, Partho Sarodi & Paul Livingstone (photos by James Rodney)

Partho Sarathy in Los Angeles, September concerts

Listen to this excerpt of Partho's melodious sarod playing in a beauitful devotional raga created by our guruji Pandit Ravi Shankar. This morning raga is known as Bhawani Bhairav.

Partho Sarathy is one of the finest classical musicians from India and a disciple of the legendary Pt. Ravi Shankar. His music embodies the true heritage of Hindustaniraga music. His virtuosity on the sarod makes his exploration of ragas an exercise in harmony, tranquility and his serious meditative approach makes his music literally soar to unscaled height of fulfillment. Partho is based in Calcutta, the cultural mecca of India and has been performing for the last 30 years in India and all over the world.



Parthoda joins us performing a number of concerts in Los Angeles around California and Mexico this fall with the India/US Jugalbandi Ensemble. The first program is a house concert on Friday, Sep 5th in Altadena. Accompanied by senior tabla artist Shashanka Bakshi the 1st half will be sarod solo to be followed by sitar/sarod jugalbandi/duet. (RSVP by email: sriyantrama@yahoo.com)

On September 20th the trio will be performing as a trio with myself on sitar and virtuoso tabla player Abhijit Banerjee for the World Festival of Sacred Music at USC and September 21st at Golden West College for the International Day of Peace.


Following these events the trio will be embarking on a fall tour of California and Mexico. For full tour dates, bios, audio & booking info see our EPK (electronic press kit)

Paul & Abhijit, Sangeet House Concert

Here's a video excerpt from our June 1st Sangeet house concert at Kent's beautiful home in San Gabriel, California. This is a drut gat (fast composition) and improvisation in a lesser heard raga in North Indian music... Raga Vatchaspati, originates from the Karnatic/South Indian classical music. The preceding jhaptal (10 beats) will be posted on YouTube shortly.

The middle section is interesting in the spontaneous use of chords on the sitar, with a unique reflective contemporary accompaniment by Abhijit.

I will release cd quality audio from this concert soon,
including Ragas Marwa & Anandi Kalyan.