'His music is the sound of singing water' Carlos Santana
'Alubhai, as I still call him, is one of the great musicians of the world. I always considered him to be the true master of the sarod, and in fact to this day I still feel he is the best. I have heard no one else who has attained such depth of feeling on the instrument. It is apparent in every-thing: the tone he gets from the sarod, the way his fingers touch the strings, the notes he chooses as he develops the raga, and the way he phrases and bends those notes also. It is a sound, and a quality, that no one can duplicate. After all these years, I still feel that way.' Ravi Shankar
'Sometimes people ask me, "How should we prepare ourselves to hear this music?", and I always reply, "Don't prepare. Just come and relax. The music will tell you what to do." ' Ali Akbar Khan
Ali Akbar Khan was one of the greatest musicians of the Indian subcontinent.
A man completely absorbed in the music of the classical tradition that he inherited, and that he helped popularise in the west. In 1955, after years of training and performing in India, he made his first trip to the west at the invitation of the famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Khan arrived in New York City and performed in a festival of Indian culture at the Museum of Modern Art, that featured the dancer Shanta Rao and the first screening of Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali (at this point billed as The Story of Apu and Durga). That Evening, for the first time, the sound of the sarod was introduced to the American ear.
While in New York, Menuhin arranged for Khan and his group of musicians to record the very first long-playing record of Indian music. The music industry in India had not yet embraced the notion that audiences would be prepared to listen to recordings of classical music for more than five or six minutes. But the huge success of Ali Akbar Khan's groundbreaking album, Music Of India: Morning and Evening Ragas, convinced them .......
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'His music is the sound of singing water' Carlos Santana
'Alubhai, as I still call him, is one of the great musicians of the world. I always considered him to be the true master of the sarod, and in fact to this day I still feel he is the best. I have heard no one else who has attained such depth of feeling on the instrument. It is apparent in every-thing: the tone he gets from the sarod, the way his fingers touch the strings, the notes he chooses as he develops the raga, and the way he phrases and bends those notes also. It is a sound, and a quality, that no one can duplicate. After all these years, I still feel that way.' Ravi Shankar
'Sometimes people ask me, "How should we prepare ourselves to hear this music?", and I always reply, "Don't prepare. Just come and relax. The music will tell you what to do." ' Ali Akbar Khan
Ali Akbar Khan was one of the greatest musicians of the Indian subcontinent.
A man completely absorbed in the music of the classical tradition that he inherited, and that he helped popularise in the west. In 1955, after years of training and performing in India, he made his first trip to the west at the invitation of the famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Khan arrived in New York City and performed in a festival of Indian culture at the Museum of Modern Art, that featured the dancer Shanta Rao and the first screening of Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali (at this point billed as The Story of Apu and Durga). That Evening, for the first time, the sound of the sarod was introduced to the American ear.
While in New York, Menuhin arranged for Khan and his group of musicians to record the very first long-playing record of Indian music. The music industry in India had not yet embraced the notion that audiences would be prepared to listen to recordings of classical music for more than five or six minutes. But the huge success of Ali Akbar Khan's groundbreaking album, Music Of India: Morning and Evening Ragas, convinced them .......
more