Issue 10: Jugalbandi by John Book
"For us, as a family, music is like food. When you need it, you don't have to explain why, because it is basic to life." -Ali Akbar Khan
A year ago when I was asked to do a column for Funkier Than Thou, I immediately jumped at the opportunity. I've done my share of writing in the last 16 years, managed to share my musical knowledge and discoveries when I jumped onto the internet in 1994. I brought my writing experiences onto the internet, posted on newsgroups, made my own fan sites, and managed to gain some friendships that go beyond the imaginary walls of a mailing list.
Writing about music is my way of sharing what I know, at the same time my discoveries along the way help me come across things that were unknown to me. This 10th column becomes the start of a new path of exploration, one that I look forward to taking on. Unlike previous discoveries, this one feels like it's going to change me for the better.
At the age of 9, I got my first Beatles record. It was from a friend of my dad's. When my dad would see his friends, he would take me along. While his friends would tell me to go play in the toy bag or go play checkers or Connect Four, I would look around the apartment or house and find their record collection. I sat down, browsed through the records, and alphabetized them.
Around this time, I had heard a Beatles song that would change my life. It was on the Rarities album, side 2, a song written by George Harrison called "The Inner Light". I became a huge fan of everything the group did after 1966, but it was this song, with its drone fading up at the beginning, that made me go "what is this?" It was one of George's journeys into Indian classical music, something he had done before with "Love You To" and "Within You Without You". When I played this song over and over, my dad one day came up to me and said "here, listen to this." He gave me a copy of Ravi Shankar's Three Ragas on Capitol. He had borrowed it from his friend, but I never gave it back. The album consisted of three songs, one of which was a 27 song taking up a whole side. I liked the sounds and felt they were unique, but my attention span was still short. At this time I had also discovered a new music called hip-hop. Mixed that in with all the other sounds I was absorbing through other cultures and my own, and living in a city (Honolulu) that was open to this, I was willing to listen to anything and everything I could. I'm not Indian, but I was immediately attracted to the sound.
Over the years I would go in and out of my interest of Indian classical music, but the one instrument I always wanted to hear was the drum known as the tabla. With a regular drum set, you can only set a rhythm or do a drum solo. But what you do within that solo is what makes you great. To me, the sound of the tabla sounded animated, like it was alive. I can't describe the sounds in words, but sometimes I would hear a tabla and it sounded like a bird swooping in. Or if someone had a good meal, it sounded like a swallow or gulp. To me, it was more than cool sounding drums, it was communication.
The year: 2001. I turned 30 the year before and I began looking back at what I had done in my life, and what I needed to do in order to improve on things. I want a better way of living, I want a good job that pays more, I want a good job with good people. I want strong friendships, I want to create my own music and be succesful at it. I want to move back to Hawaii and live the life I feel I deserve. Of course, it takes a lot of personal change to meet those goals. A lot of things had happened to me in my 30th year, some good, some bad. In my 30th year, I experienced a lot of things that helped me get to where I am today. Certain events forced me to think about my health, my future, and in many ways my sanity. It forced me to ask myself a lot of questions on what to do next. If I am to truly improve on who I am, I need to be the one to make some changes. Like always, I look towards music.
Music creates an immediate emotion. I had been a fan of jazz for years but embraced it quite a bit in the last four. My saxophone skills is limited to the solo in Hall & Oates' "Maneater", but when I hear John Coltrane playing his prayer in A Love Supreme, I cry. As I began going through a lot of different things in my 30th year, I started listening to some CD's I had by Anoushka Shankar, the 21 year old daughter of Ravi Shankar. I had been looking into various aspects of Indian music a few times in the last year, but I found myself drawn into the sound even more. It was soothing and relaxing, at times very sexy.
I am not someone who listens to a song and is content. I have to know why it moves me. When I found out Led Zeppelin were ripping off all the blues artists, I had to hunt down some Robert Johnson. Back in 1987, that was a hard task, the reissue market is nothing like what it is today. When I heard they also borrowed some words from Memphis Minnie, I had to find out who she was. For awhile I explored the blues, and loved it. Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Sonny Boy Williamson I and II, Willie Dixon, Bukka White... I listened to these records and they were far better than Led Zeppelin. When I heard Robert Plant singing about his squeezed lemons, I went back to "Travelin' Riverside Blues" and heard Robert Johnson walking down a ditch with some loose change in his pocket.
I'm listening to Anoushka Shankar and naturally I want to hear her father again. Angel Records started reissuing all of his early albums on CD, so I bought two of them. I'm a liner notes fiend, but reading the liner notes of an Indian album isn't always easy. I wanted to know what an alap, jor, jhala, gat, and teen tal was. Why did some songs have 16 beats while others had 12, 10, or 7? Why was a song described as having a 4-2-2 rhythm? Even though I had listened to this music off and on for 22 years, I was more curious than ever on all of these elements. Indian music was never psychedelic or "far out" to me, I know a generation of hippies probably thought Ravi Shankar's music was good for acid trips but that wasn't true for me. The music, like all good music should, had taken me elsewhere.
Once I knew the definition of some Indian music terms, I knew I could begin to appreciate the music much more. An "alap" is the first section of most ragas, where the musician has to improvise on his instrument to create moods and textures. If it's sad, he will play sad. If it's happy, he'll play festive. Some ragas are 7 minutes, most take up a full side of a record. With CD's, a raga can last 40 minutes or more. It is said that how a Indian musician improvises and develops the mood in an "alap" is what makes him an artist, and what separates musicians from a Pandit or Ustad (the Hindu and Muslim terms for a "guru", or master of their instrument).
Outside of Ravi Shankar, I really knew none of the other musicians. I looked back at one of my albums, and loved the sounds I heard. I found that Alla Rakha had played tabla on some of my favorite songs. I also discovered that Ali Akbar Khan was the man who accompanied him on the sarod. This team of Shankar, Khan, and Rakha helped bring attention to their music in the 60's, and make it into the world phenomenon it is today. While Shankar and Khan are genuises in their own right, they would record many duets together on many top selling albums. These duets are called "jugalbandi", or putting together two distinctively different instruments and trying to find common ground. I had also heard the style of playing as being defined as "unity through diversity". I was immediately drawn to this, and had to hear more.
I picked up a CD by a sitarist named Vilayat Khan. I bought it because he had a 75 minute raga on his CD called "Raga Shree". I have always been drawn to albums or CD's with mammoth-length songs, and this would definitely be something I hoped to enjoy. Once I found time to sit down and take a listen, I played the CD. "Raga Shree" is interpreted as someone with restless energy, and is played in this manner. Some say it has religious connotations, but what I liked about the interpretation was that it said it can be listened to as someone with a restless energy, looking for inner peace. I felt that I had picked this CD for some reason, because I feel the same way. I want to do and experience a lot of things, but I am also looking for the one thing, the one place that will keep me grounded. My own "inner peace". I played the CD, and immediately I could tell that Vilayat Khan was a different player from Ravi Shankar. The "restless" part of the song was done by Khan playing fast and pulling the strings of the sitar in ways I had never heard. It sounded like he was playing the sitar as a steel guitar. It took him 34 minutes to go through the "alap", and I never lost interest. I then heard the song move to a new phase, and the tabla kicked in. For the next 40 minutes, I heard Khan play in a manner that sounded like "restless energy", someone looking for "inner peace" and struggling to get there. He began pulling and pounding the strings, using the sitar as a percussion instrument and playing at a speed that kept my interest going. I lost track of time and didn't know where I was in the song. All of a sudden I sensed a change in the song and it sounded like the restless soul had found "the light". His inner peace. It stops, and I am in awe. I opened my eyes realized I experienced a 75 minute raga.
My vacation plans this year were altered a bit, so I decided to stay close to home. I had known for awhile about Ravi Shankar and his daughter Anoushka performing in Seattle, but my original vacation plans meant I would not be able to go. Once those plans changed, I had to find a way to see him. Ravi, who is now 81, has said that this would be his goodbye tour, and rightfully so. He has performed for 60 years, it's time for him to relax and enjoy life. The show had been sold out for months, but I managed to find a way to get a ticket. I got it, and on October 27, 2001, I saw him. After watching him and his daughter play, I was hooked. I can describe the feelings I felt, but cannot tell you what the music did to me. It's like listening to the end of Pink Floyd's "The Trial" when the judge yells out "tear down the wall!". It's listening to the end of The Beatles' "A Day In The Life". It's listening to the last transmission on DJ Shadow's Endtroducing album.
The day after this show, I bought a few CD's. Loved them. Contacted one of the musicians, and asked her about her music. She was happy to know that she was a part of my musical journey into Indian music. The vinyl junkie in me kicks in, and I want the original albums. I want it all, and I want to listen to as much as possible. I want to archive it and form my own Indian music organization. I want to finally learn the tabla. Yeah, it borders on obsession, but I am a student who is willing to learn and experience it all. Even though the music is foreign to me in many ways, I somehow feel very close to it, kind of like my bond to Hawaiian music. My own personal "jugalbandi".
I even sense the music will change the way I make my own sounds. I shared my comments about the Ravi Shankar concert with someone, and she said to me "obviously this has changed you for the better." I agree, but I could also say Indian classical music has changed me towards something better.