David Mason
From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
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Posted 9 Mar 2013 5:38 am |
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A FLAMENCO/Indian hybrid? Only works if you can pull it off... there's a few gratuitous "ole's!" here and there, but overall this kicks hard, IMO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TJUT-yz3Z4
Of course Poppa Ravi had written extensively for the film industry, in a huge range of hybrids. There's a great CD, "Full Circle" - recorded as his 80th birthday celebration in 2000 - where he & Anoushka are playing in what sounds very much like the classical style, except she's supplying the tanpura drone part - and the drone changes keys. It's sneaky, which is the bomb.
Then in 2007 she & then-squeeze Karsh Kale made a GREAT CD, "Breathing Underwater", where she actually played lead sitar in and out of some basic 5-chord pop-style chord changes, reminds me a bit of Mark Knopfler or the "good Jerry."  And now this - she's taking on a bigger challenge with each successive project. The roots of flamenco are in the intersection of the "church modes" with the Muslim invasion of Spain anyway, when the moguls and mullahs brought along the "funny notes" and rhythms they'd themselves purloined from Southern, Hindu, India.
I find a high percentage of the "hybrids" to be tedious & manipulative - just listen to the real stuff, you'll get it - but when these things are grown internally and attacked by the best of the best; not everything new sucks!
Classical Indian and flamenco players all work on developing a touch that ranges from sweet to mean, and just that one right note can be downright stunning when it's slid into a new context - 41:00 -> -> ...yikes. She has her bridge built nice and pointy for a clearer & less buzzy tone - plays well with others - and I like that she's setting up challenges for herself with the result she gets bigger, badder and better with each one. Shades of her daddy.
(And Anoushka, baby, I'll still be there for you when "he" disappoints you...) |
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