To paraphrase the announcer on Monty Python, “And now for some completely different things.” Indian sitar master Ananda Shankar’s Walking On (Real World, 72438-48118, 64:18) surprised the hell outta Grooves. From the title tune’s wicked frisson of ol’ time Ganges River Delta slide sitar, hip-hop beats, bouncing tablas to “Jungle Symphony (Live)”‘s surreal evocation of “hip” ’70s Hollywood/Bollywood B-movie themes (cheesy buzzsaw-wah-wah-slide-flamenco-horn-like sitar effects, hippy flute, groovy tabla, pop-generic drum ‘n’ bass), Walking On will surprise you too. Shankar’s been doing this sort of thing since 1970. (He passed away last year)
Originally PublishedRelated Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Harry Connick, Jr.: Direct Hits
Two decades after his commercial breakthrough, Harry Connick Jr. taps legendary producer Clive Davis for an album of crooner roots and beloved tunes
Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro