Date: 1989
Release: Warner #25885
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“Without doubt one of the most beautiful and soulful recordings I have ever heard.”

–Brian Eno

I Will Not Be Sad In This World is an album whose gently defiant title should become our mantra in these times of terror. In the days immediately after September 11, 2001, my stereo fell silent as the TV mercilessly blared out its cacophony of bad news, brutalizing us with images of a new world. We held the Medusa’s head up to the mirror, and refused to accept that the image reflected might simply be a human one. In an exhausting marathon, I remained glued to the tube, wondering what in the hell was going on, wondering what happened to love, wondering what I’d tell my children someday–if I lived that long. In the panic, I had abandoned music–my love, my religion. For four days I lived without it, not realizing what I was doing to myself, until finally I heard that first healing note. I turned to this record, and in a brilliant moment, found serenity.

There is a deeply restorative power present in the music of Djivan Gasparyan. It reaches your ears like a gift, then moves on inside you, even when the record stops. I Will Not Be Sad In This World contains some of the most emotionally expressive music I’ve ever heard. Achingly beautiful sounds emerge from Gasparyan’s duduk, a 3000 year-old flute-like instrument from his native Armenia. His mystical playing can only be described as transcendent, overflowing with a spiritual intensity of Biblical proportions. Like saxophonist John Coltrane’s divinely inspired playing on A Love Supreme, Gasparyan somehow manages to pull from his instrument a sound that feels like the human soul laid bare.

I was first introduced to the music of Djivan Gasparyan through his collaboration with Peter Gabriel on Passion, the soundtrack to Martin Scorsese’s epic film, The Last Temptation Of Christ. With its brilliant fusion of ancient and modern sounds, Passion ignited my deep love for Middle-Eastern music, profoundly influencing the music that I myself began to play. At the time, I didn’t realize that Peter Gabriel served more as an interpreter and synthesizer than a composer of the music on Passion. That’s why I was so shocked when I first put on I Will Not Be Sad In This World, because what I was hearing was clearly Passion’s source. The opening song, “A Cool Wind Is Blowing,” sounded exactly the same as the opening song from Passion, “The Feeling Begins,” minus Peter Gabriel’s heavy drum overdubs. And without the drums, the plaintive tone of Gasparyan duduk poured though the speakers in its purist form, hitting me in my soul. This was something.

Now out-of-print, I Will Not Be Sad In This World was originally released on the Russian Melodya label in 1983 and was subsequently released in 1989 on Brian Eno’s label, Opal Records. It was dedicated to the victims of the devastating earthquake that struck Armenia on December 7, 1988. Although he gained worldwide recognition for the record, he hardly made a dime. Gasparyan donated all of the profits to help his fellow countrymen. Today, as we live through this new man-made disaster, we must all search out the music that helps us recover. Remember the simple message offered by Djivan Gasparyan: I WILL NOT BE SAD IN THIS WORLD.

Date: October 6, 1996 (recording)
Release: India Archive Music #1042
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I first heard of Debashish Bhattacharya from guitar master Nels Cline, who raved about this album on the “What I’ve Been Listening to Lately” section of his website. Cline gushed,

“What a find this man is! He rocks!! Besides his amazing phrasing and melodic invention (common among scary Indian classical players…), he adds some chording and fingerstyle to his improvisations with great effectiveness.”

Trusting Nels’ taste, I bought it cold, figuring that with a name like Hindustani Slide Guitar, it had to be good. Upon hearing the first few ultra-mellow minutes of the opening Raga Saraswati, I experienced a brief feeling of buyers’ remorse. In a snap judgment I thought, this doesn’t rock, this sounds like the spacey Indian mood music they play at the Bodhi Tree (an irritatingly Hollywood New Age megastore that sells such indispensable accessories as the chakra pillow, “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success” video, and of course, the Tao-Sex Decoder). I lit some Nag Champa incense, picked up a magazine, and decided to accept the album as pleasantly exotic background music.

About 20 minutes into the lengthy, three-part Raga Saraswati (named after the Indian goddess of music and learning), my magazine (and jaw) hit the floor, as fiery licks from the Jimi Hendrix of Indian guitar swirled hypnotically out of my speakers to mingle with the incense. Like a mystic reaching for a holy book, I opened the CD booklet and read:

“Debashish says that when he is playing this raga he visualizes the goddess, golden in color, riding gracefully on her customary vehicle, the swan.”

As the kaleidoscopic waves of sounds washed over me, I felt strangely like Peter Sellers in the 1967 film, “The Party.”

With meditative flights of mind-boggling virtuosity, Debashish and his self-designed 22-stringed acoustic instrument have boldly reshaped a vibrant and distinctly Indian guitar form, the Hindustani slide. Since the age of four, this accomplished musician and singer has studied intensively with some of India’s greatest musical gurus, learning to master not only the slide guitar, but also the tabla, sitar as well as several Indian classical vocal styles.

Because of his broad musical training, Debashish is able to draw upon a wide array of sounds, techniques and impulses in his playing. As he explains,

“I am not doing anything new right now—I can tell you—because it is already in the history of Indian classical music. But the synthesis of it is what is new…I have tried to synthesize all the possible [styles of] music whish is already in our tradition.”

Debashish plays his instrument like no other, sitting cross legged, guitar held on his lap, sliding a small steel bar across the stings with one hand while metal finger and a tortoise shell thumb picks pluck furiously away on the other. Combining this inimitable technique with the deepest spiritual feeling, Debashish’s guitar speaks with all the expressive nuance and melodic range of the human voice.

While few outside his native land have ever heard of him, Debashish ranks among the greatest slide guitarists in the world. Regarded as a national treasure, he was awarded the President of India award at the age of 21. His incredible talents even reached the ears of guitarist John McLaughlin, who invited Debashish to join him in the studio and on tour with his acclaimed Indo-jazz band, Shakti. Like McLaughlin’s more meaningful work, Hindustani Slide Guitar is all about feeling, with masterful technique eclipsed by sheer emotion. Richly satisfying and heavy with mood, it showcases one of India’s most radiant musical voices at the peak of his powers, making it background music for the gods and goddesses.

Date: February 8, 1968
Release: DCC #617
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Gabor Szabo is one of those gigantically influential guitarists whose name or music few have ever heard. Carlos Santana, John McLaughlin, Robbie Krieger, and Larry Coryell all seem to have spent some serious quality time soaking in Szabo’s hypnotic sound. Largely self-taught, Szabo‘s playing brilliantly fused elements of jazz, pop, Gypsy, Indian, and Middle-Eastern music, creating a highly mystical and totally unique style.

A refugee of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Szabo spent his formative years playing guitar in underground jam sessions in Budapest. His distinctive sound matured during an important four-year tenure in Chico Hamilton’s pioneering quintet, which also featured saxophonist Charles Lloyd. Two years into his solo career and deep in the midst of the late ‘60s music revolution, Szabo released his studio masterpiece, Bacchanal. It was on this 1968 recording that he triumphed in his experiments with feedback and Eastern-tinged psychedelic re-workings of current pop tunes.

The album opens with one of two Donovan covers, “Three King Fishers.” Szabo fluidly bends his guitar strings to create a spellbinding sitar-like sound. Classically trained guitarist Jimmy Stewart accompanies him with rhythmic intensity. Monster drummer Jim Keltner is magic here, keeping things incredibly tight while seamlessly floating in and out of jazz, rock, and Eastern time signatures. “Three King Fishers” is a golden psychedelic relic, comparable in mood and intensity to the Doors’ brooding classic, “The End.” The title track, one of only two Szabo originals included here, follows the shining path of “Three King Fishers.” Hal Gordon’s percussion adds another layer of rhythmic complexity to the mix, driving the song to the highest of heights. Szabo’s agile fingers wring every bit of emotion imaginable from his electric guitar.

This musical highpoint is followed by the album’s second Donovan cover, “Sunshine Superman.” This up-tempo track sounds wonderfully dated, conjuring up images of miniskirt clad Go-Go dancers gyrating in suspended cages while waves of multi-colored lights wash across their bodies. Szabo’s contagiously energetic playing uplifts the song, keeping it from sinking into pure kitsch. “The Look Of Love” is a pre-Barry White pillow talk classic: clink your wine glasses and sink into the plush shag carpet of this relaxed groove. The strongest LP recorded by Szabo’s regular group of the era, this would prove to be their last session. While Bacchanal is largely an album of ‘60s pop covers, Szabo’s inspired quintet transforms the material into a one of a kind collection of first-rate jazz instrumentals.

Date: 1975
Release: A&M/Horizon #0809
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“There is joy laced with confidence in this music, and sadness, or pathos, that is as much connected to the Blues as it is to the huge yearning of that sound in Eastern music… Throughout the record, one can hear the melding of Third World music and mysticism with Western instruments.”

– From Stanley Crouch’s original liner notes to Brown Rice

For Don Cherry, life and music were one and the same, and he consistently approached both with a daring sense of adventure. In his world-view, the art of living life and expressing life through music depended upon people “listening and traveling.” A global explorer, Cherry learned to play and compose for wood flutes, tamboura, gamelan, and other non-Western instruments.

Brown Rice is Cherry’s mid-70s masterpiece, pulling from every corner of the planet (and beyond) to deliver a deeply spiritual groove that pulses with primal energy and folksy beauty. Combining elements of Middle-Eastern, African, and American music, Brown Rice brilliantly succeeds in covering the breadth of Cherry’s musical interests while still remaining accessible, even danceable.

As I scoured the Internet looking for my copy of Brown Rice, I was surprised to find the album’s title track in the play-lists of many club and radio DJs who were mostly spinning rare groove and funk cuts. After my first listen, I realized that these DJs were hip to a musical secret worth sharing. The album’s title track features Charlie Haden playing his upright bass through a wah-wah peddle to produce growling, guitar-like sounds that are incredibly funky and feel great with the volume turned way up. Add to the mix electric bongos (yes, they do exist), the soulful, spacey vocals of sister Verna Gillis, driving electric piano, and the ever swinging rhythms of drummer Billy Higgins, and you have a perfectly eclectic groove for Cherry to mess with.

In a throaty whisper, Cherry rhymes out mostly unrecognizable lyrics which sound foreign and exotic, punctuated with the words “Brown Rice.” While it may read strange, Cherry’s original style of singing sounds startlingly funky and mysterious. Frank Lowe sets the track on fire with his impassioned tenor-sax screams and howls, putting a palatable dose of free-jazz into the funk. “Malkauns” opens with an extended, earthy bass solo by Haden, accompanied by Moki on the tamboura. Cherry’s trumpet playing on the track has a distinct Miles Davis feel, strongly reminiscent of the master’s acoustic cuts from the Bitches Brew era. “Chenrezig” points towards Cherry’s later Codona recordings with multi-instrumentalist Colin Walcott. Fresh from world-music encounters at Woodstock’s Creative Music Studio, Cherry beautifully blends African and Indian influences on “Chenrezig.” His chant-like singing sounds like a spiritual or a call to prayer, giving the song a powerful message that transcends its unintelligible lyrics.

The closing track, “Degi-Degi,” ends things with a heavily African-flavored funk, as Cherry returns to his whisper-rhyme singing while the rest of the band swirls in a hypnotic, polyrhythmic groove. The music dances off the record with a magnificent sound recorded under the watchful ears of Philip Glass engineer Kurt Munkacsi and Carla Bley’s trumpeter husband. An unsung classic from the unexpected year of 1975, the joy of hearing this record makes it well worth the search.

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Date: December 19 – 21, 1966
Release: RCA 66551-2
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Before it spilled out onto the world, Duke Ellington‘s music existed in an inaccessible world of creative genius, a solitary realm deep inside his soul where uncharted sounds swirled wildly. His gift lay in his ability to move inside himself, explore, and return from solitude to forcefully express his inner musical visions. Duke was on intimate terms with his soul, and he understood how to conjure up emotional landscapes that could be felt by anyone else with hearts and ears. He didn’t simply commit his ideas to paper, but wrote out parts with the individual voices of his musical partners in mind. He knew how to get the very best out of saxophonists Johnny Hodges and Paul Gonsalves, how to push and direct them so that they could flower in the fertile realm of his ideas.

It has almost become an obligation to acknowledge the genius of Duke Ellington when writing about the man and his music. But in the perfunctory ritual of praising that has followed the 100th anniversary of his birth, the true essence of Duke’s brilliance has often been overlooked. Above all else, Duke Ellington‘s genius lay in his ability to create music that was uncompromisingly accessible. Making music for the masses usually involves a dumbing-down to the lowest common denominator. The celebrated work of many modern artists all too often leaves us unsatisfied, thinking “This is great? I could’ve done THAT.” While the popular songbook of jazz is heavy with the compositions of Duke Ellington (and Billy Strayhorn), nobody who plays his songs would ever suggest that they could have written them in the first place.

Duke Ellington was just the kind of American the whole world could love. President Kennedy realized this when he dispatched Ellington on a tour of the Middle and Near East in 1963. With Duke as musical ambassador, Kennedy hoped to win the hearts and minds of the peoples of the East. Dutifully, Duke Ellington led his caravan of mighty musicians through the exotic cities of Amman, Baghdad, Ceylon, Tehran, Bombay, and Ankra. They performed the classic Ellington songs, all the while absorbing the sounds of what Ellington described as “a world upside down.”

Rather than trying to reproduce the music they heard on their journey through the East, Ellington and Strayhorn “let it roll around, undergo a chemical change, and then seep out on paper.” By opening The Far East Suite with a song entitled “Tourist Point of View,” Ellington makes it clear that the album’s Eastern sounds are no more than the musical impressions of two Westerners. “Tourist Point of View” is fresh, dramatic, and mysterious—as the East always appears to unfamiliar eyes. With a nimble hand on the cymbals, the drumming of newcomer Rufus Jones is a key ingredient on the record—adding layers of Eastern infused polyrhythms to the mix. Johnny Hodges is spectacular on all of the album’s nine original compositions, but nowhere is his playing more lush and evocative as on the beautiful “Isfahan.” The song is one of the greatest examples of the writing genius of Ellington and Strayhorn. The fact that “Isfahan” was recorded in only two takes demonstrates the deep empathy of the entire band to the musical visions of Ellington/Strayhorn. And when the individual musicians step out, every solo they take adds perfectly to the distinct vibe of each song.

On the hard swinging “Blue Pepper (Far East of the Blues), Johnny Hodges rocks the house with a surprisingly mean tone. Jimmy Hamilton‘s graceful clarinet playing is showcased throughout “Ad Lib On Nippon,” an 11-minute Ellington composition inspired by his many visits to Japan. This lengthy track gives Ellington room to really stretch out on piano, highlighting his often overlooked playing. It’s remarkable to think that Ellington was 67 years old when he recorded The Far East Suite . At this point he already had over 2,000 compositions and heaps of recordings under his belt. But the amazing thing about Ellington is that he never stopped growing creatively, and even in the winter years of life he passionately continued innovating, experimenting, and refining on the broadest of musical canvases.

Duke Ellington and his musical tribe “didn’t want to do anything others had done before” when they set out to make The Far East Suite. The phenomenally accessible yet unprecedented music that they recorded over three days in 1966 is proof of just how brilliantly they succeeded.

Date: November 17, 1961
Release: Rhino #1380
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If I were going to remix the CD release of At The Village Gate, I would add a faint track of a diamond needle hissing along a vinyl groove. There’s something about this recording that smells of cheap grass and whatever else Bleecker Street smelled like in 1961. You just wish you had an old hi-fi stereo system to play it on. Still, I’ve already ripped through three copies of At The Village Gate CD–I can imagine how many LPs I’d need.

This live disc was recorded before jazz clubs were like museums, before musicians were like curators. Listening to it, you feel the crowd at the Village Gate always evident behind the music, a low hum. The talkers in the club who came just to catch a drink on a felicitous night were welcome–their presence pulls you into the room.

Herbie Mann, born Herbert Solomon, had gone to South America that year on a concert tour and had been on the world music kick before, experimenting with instruments and different international personnel, especially from Africa. He picked up a few things down south. In the late 50s, through the 60s, and into the 70s, Mann stood almost alone as a jazz flutist, and certainly among the higher strata of his peers in fusing varied influences into a mix that had cool and plenty of swing.

“Comin’ Home, Baby,” the first track of only three, starts off with a double-bass front line, plunked slowly in combination with conga and drums to create an overflowing rhythm section. From the smoke-filled room, a woman with a whisky voice testifies from the audience: “Oh yeah!” or “Play it!” Then Mann’s flute comes in soft, tight, with Hagood Hardy‘s vibes playing the same melody. They play low, easy phrases, and then the solos: first Mann, playing both beautiful clear tones and broken hoarse Coltrane notes. Who knew the flute could be this cool? Well here it is, cooler than we’ll ever hope to be. And then the vibes solo, with Hardy humming the notes moments before he playing them. And then a great solo by Ben Tucker, the composer of the tune, sounding like Thelonius Monk picking at the upright bass.

Next you get two great Gershwin songs. First, “Summertime,” often played to death, but not here. No, in Mann’s hands in 1961, the song’s bittersweet essence is distilled and transported to Rio. The drums and percussion come up a samba beat. Fingers snap in time, and it’s all Bossa Nova: you need a martini, or a batido, a cold drink. Mann’s solo builds to a crescendo that includes a minute-long one-note samba that lingers, teasing and returning to that one note, for bars at a time. That same woman yells again, at the end of the solo: “Bravo!” maybe. The performances drip with sweat. It never lets you up. It’s a samba, but only in part, just as Sketches of Spain is only part Spanish music.

Next, and last, is the long “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” clocking in at almost 20-minutes. Here’s evidence of the full synthesis Mann created. Mann’s smart solo on this track wails like something from the Middle East, Hebrew or Arabic. It’s like an updated “Caravan,” with the vibes and the bass falling into line. And before percussionist Chief Bey‘s solo—before, when’s the last time you saw that?—the crowd goes wild. His solo rises up from the rhythm section, settles back in, and rises up again, over and over.

Though Mann made some great records after this live disc, he was soon getting used to tidiness, and tidiness has never served jazz musicians. His later Brazilian stuff is even tidier, safer. Lately, it’s all gone south; I’ve seen Mann a few times live since 1990, and what you get from the updated version is a light Brazilian jazz rehash. But back in 1961, there it all is: a base of bebop with the Latin beat, but also Middle Eastern and African influences. There’s funk on this CD, there’s cool, and Boss Nova, and samba, and bebop. There’s a skinny white kid from Brooklyn playing flute, a Canadian, someone from Dakar, an African American from the Bronx, a Peruvian/Puerto Rican, and a Sudanese. At this rare moment in Mann’s career, it all held together, and it just swings. Mann is still out there playing, and he will come to your town someday, but forget it. Just buy this CD instead.

Date: 1968 (original release)
Release: Columbia #CK-9296
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East 6th Street in New York City is one of the stranger places in the city. There are about 15 Indian restaurants on one block. Barkers stand out front of the restaurants announcing that their restaurant is the best. The food at all of these restaurants is alarmingly similar; the joke goes that there is really only one kitchen in the back, spanning the length of the street. We usually go to a place called Panna II, which is unrelentingly garish: chili pepper Christmas lights hang from the ceiling in the hundreds so you have to bend down to walk. They play what is called “modern Indian music,” which sounds like old Indian music with a backbeat and electric guitars. It’s a music as garish as the decor. And if I haven’t listened in a while, it always sends me running back to Ravi Shankar.

From the moment I heard this album, which was recorded in the early 1960s, I was a fan of Shankar’s, despite my complete ignorance. As a novice, one can gain some understanding of this seemingly alien music. The adventurous person of a certain age has heard of the world-famous Ravi Shankar because of his middle-brow association with the late George Harrison and his work with such high-brows as Philip Glass (on a horrendous album called Passages), but until there is some explanation of what to listen for, it’s all very confusing.

Evoking that feeling of instant mastery is the point of The Sounds Of India, which is appropriately subtitled “An Introduction to Indian Music.” It holds out its hand to the ignorant and does its job well. If Shankar didn’t set out to become emblematic of an entire culture’s sound, he at least set out to educate the West. The first track on this disc is a 4-minute primer on the rich structure of classical Indian music, which is not like classical music in the West.

Haydn and Mozart probably never improvised during a single performance in their lives. Not so with Indian classical. The first thing you hear on the disc is a few plunks on a sitar, then the cascading of the strings, like a harp, and then Ravi Shankar says (this is a slightly edited transcription; the ellipses are musical interludes):

“Ragas are precise melody forms. A raga is not a mere scale…. Nor is it a mood…. Each raga has its own ascending and descending movement…. The soloist does a free improvisation, known as Alap, after which he starts the theme based on a rhythmic framework known as Tala. He can choose from many Talas…”

Some Talas, he explains, have 16 beats, some have 10. He demonstrates, actually counting the beats for the first few run-throughs, then just counting each time he comes back around to one. He shows how the rhythm gets faster and faster, showing off a little bit to wow the Western listener, for whom he has these words of advice:

“The Western listener will appreciate and enjoy our music more if he listens with an open and relaxed mind without expecting to hear harmony, counterpoint or other elements prominent in western music. Neither should our music be thought of as akin to jazz, despite the improvisation and exciting rhythms present in both kinds of music.”

But this is misleading. Why not explore those similarities? He did himself, later meeting and giving lessons to John Coltrane and Don Ellis, and composing music for Buddy Rich and John Handy. (Don’t we wish we had a disc of Miles or Bird explaining it all, breaking it down for us? On second thought, we probably don’t need it, because what those guys played was much less complicated than this.) Why not listen to it as we listen to jazz? I listen for a mood, an overarching theme, the microfelicities of the improvisations. He might be introducing us to this music, but we don’t have to obey him absolutely.

This album came about in part from Shankar’s dismay over the ignorance of the West about Eastern music. He gained prominance, in part, from his work on the music for Satyajit Ray’s debut film “Pather Panchali,” a kind of Indian “400 Blows.” Much later, he won an Oscar for his work on Richard Attenborough’s “Gandhi.” In 1952, Shankar met the great violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who would say later that composers Georges Enesco and Bela Bartok and Shankar were the greatest musicians he had known. High praise indeed.

Most important for the purposes of popular music, in 1966 Shankar met George Harrison. Shankar became famous in the West, even playing at the Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock. He obviously didn’t insulate himself from other music, but at the same time he desired Westerners to hear Indian music in a pure form.

Which is what this disc gives us. The first full musical track, “Dadra,” is a moody but joyful synapse fryer. It starts out restrained, then lets loose. The tabla player follows Shankar, beating out a funky groove, if one can say this about Indian music. The second track, “Maru-Bihag,” is my favorite, sad, wise, forlorn, and hopeful. It begins with a 30-second explanation of the raga by Shankar. “Maru-Bihag” is described as an evening raga in the liner notes, and that just seems right, as if it would be perfect to listen to at sunset. It is followed by “Bhimpalasi,” which is preceded by another explanation. It is described as having “a mood of tenderness; the suppressed longing of a lover, but serene, with dignity, and yet throbbing with deep emotion.” OK, fine. The disc ends with “Sindhi-Bhairavi,” a morning raga, quiet without much from the tabla, the drum, or the tambura, the drone instrument.

Indian music can put you in a meditative state, in the way that great literature can. It can put you in what novelist and theorist John Gardner called a “vivid and continuous dream,” which he called the highest ambition of art. But I’ve always disagreed with Gardner that that’s it. A great book, in my mind, will have sentences that call attention to themselves, and because we are adaptable, we get pleasure from those sentences and then are able to return to the dream. I think that art should call attention to itself, otherwise it’s just entertainment. And Shankar’s music, though bringing to the listener a very vivid and continuous dream, is enough of an artist to call attention to himself. He is such a genius that even the untrained ear (mine) can hear how wonderful it is, in the same way my ears heard what was so astonishing about Miles Davis for the first time.

But those pleasures are often intellectual ones. What is so astonishing about Ravi Shankar‘s music is that while it is endlessly fascinating from that standpoint, what matters most is that this is music that can make you happy and bring you to tears, sometimes in the same moment.