Search - Ravi Shankar :: Golden Jubilee Concert Live

Ravi's Pre-birthday Bash: #70

Dr. Debra Jan Bibel | Oakland, CA USA | 08/06/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"When Ravi Shankar was nearing his 70th birthday in late 1989 (born April 7, 1920), he performed a Golden Jubilee concert in London to mark his milestone. Special events often beget extraordinary actions, and Shankar's performance of evening ragas was remarkably sensitive. It also records two musicians for the last time. He was joined on second sitar by his son Shubho (who would die from pneumonia 1992), Durga Lai (who died in January 1990) on the folk pakhawaj drum, and Kumar Bose on tabla. The two-CD set begins with Raga Jhinjhoti. It is a beautiful, romantic raga, and except for the final 6 minutes of the 39-minute piece, it is without drums; the two sitars provided the lyricism, complexity, and momentum. The drum rhythm was in chautal, 4-4-2-2, appropriate to the old dhrupad form of the performance. It frankly is the best piece in the album. This was followed by the evening raga Khamaj, which applied a 14-beat rhythm of dhamar. The second disk provides Raga Bihag, which lasts 48 minutes. This should afford Shankar another opportunity to stretch in slow development, but he doesn't. Instead, the tabla joins in also immediately. Still, the sweet Bihag scale is majestically presented and modestly improvised in slow teental for some 15 minutes, then moves into a traditional fast gat for 30 minutes. The last piece on the program, as expected, is a light classical ragmala."