Sitar
All records with sitar · Solo sitar only
Destiada (Banda Sonora Original)
The 1984 soundtrack for dance-theater performance Destiada marked Pep Llopis’ debut score for avant-garde Valencian company Ananda Dansa, and initiated a creative partnership that would continue throughout the ensuing decades.The dance is structured as a lyrical fable about the struggle between life and death as seen through the crimson-tinted lens of the Spanish bullfighting tradition. Llopis and Vicent Alonso, a fellow Spanish composer, instrumentalist, and longtime collaborator, were inspired…
Noisy Silence - Gentle Noise
One day at the MPS studio in Villingen, 21 January 1969. Dave Pike on vibes, Volker Kriegel on guitar and sitar, Hans Rettenbacher and Peter Baumeister, produced by Joachim-Ernst Berendt. The Dave Pike Set's debut, with the sitar piece Mathar and Kriegel's rework of Zappa's Mother People.
Free Jazz Goes Underground
Hamburg, 1969. A drummer recently arrived from Westphalia, known around the Jazzhouse on Brandstwiete as a capable timekeeper who could swing in 4/4 and play rock beats, which is why Klaus Doldinger had hired him for Passport. His name was Udo Lindenberg. Free Jazz Goes Underground, released by MPS in 1970 under the name Free Orbit, is the first studio album of the band he led, and he sings on it, in English, alongside a second vocalist.
MPS's own note on the reissue admits you need careful list…
The Oimels
Two years after Free Action, a different record. The Oimels, MPS 1969, is the Wolfgang Dauner Quintet playing pop: Dauner on piano, organ and voice, Eberhard Weber on bass, cello and voice, Siegfried Schwab on guitar and sitar, Pierre Cavalli on guitar, and Roland Wittich on drums and voice, who also did the cover art with Dauner.
The programme mixes Dauner originals with a Gershwin tune, a traditional, and a Lennon-McCartney song. A RateYourMusic listener puts it plainly: a different kind of ja…
Jazz Meets India
Villingen, 23 October 1967. Irène Schweizer's trio with Mani Neumeier and Uli Trepte, a year before Guru Guru, meets Dewan Motihar's sitar, tabla and tambura, with Manfred Schoof and Barney Wilen. Three pieces, two of them long, and the seventeen-minute Sun Love. All About Jazz calls it an unqualified success.
Mehrpouya Sitar
*2024 reissue* This - somehow - mythological album from one of Iran’s top sitarist lurches between traditional Eastern forms and more modern Western styles, blending the two into a fascinating fusion of cultures and flavours. Similar to the work of Indian rare groove master Ananda Shankar, the record brings to life the ultimate marriage of funky drums, lush horns, wah-wah guitars and Eastern harmonies. A necessary re-discovery !
Re-cycling
Tip! "In ‘re-cycling’ I distilled a true story, into its component parts, and put it back together as the narrative of this album's music. Each track represents one of five elements: a fungus, a bacteria, rocks, water, a tree. These elements come together to create a forest of sound approaches created through sitar and tabla. The album's title – ‘re-cycling’ – works on several levels. It's a reference to the cycles of life and death, familiar cycles (the water cycle, the rock cycle) and unfamili…
In delicate balance
*2023 stock* Recorded immediately following a group meditation, "in delicate balance" takes that spiritual energy and amplifies it back to listeners. The album's title refers to Raag Bhairavi where I interweave several themes "in a delicate balance" of inspiration and experience.
"J.J Gregg’s depth of passion for his music and his attention to nuance on the sitar is masterful. His study and use of traditional ragas is beautifully filtered through his own touch and personal experiences in other g…
Opening up
*2023 stock* J.J. Gregg’s 'opening up' draws listeners deep into a meditative state. Each raga provides a different mood while taking the listener on a journey unique to their state of mind. The first track, a lilting and bright rendition of Raag Rageshree, explores speed and sound in a most refreshing way. In track two, Raag Yaman offers a uniquely developed and comprehensive journey through the beauty of South Asian Classical music. In the concluding track on the album, Raag Chandrakauns, deep…
A Taste of India
Tip! This is the one and only Martin Denny diving into the highly exotic sounds of India. Originally released in 1968 on Liberty Records, A Taste of India stands as one of the best later Denny's work. Here the king of Exotica injects his gorgeous instrumental arrangements with tons of sitars and tanpuras as the main ingredients of another stylized sound trip. The album highlights include a memorable version of The Strawberry Alarm Clock's Incense and Peppermints and Denny's own masterpiece Hypno…
The Codona Trilogy
3-CD box collecting Codona's three ECM albums (Codona, Codona 2, Codona 3) by Collin Walcott, Don Cherry and Naná Vasconcelos, recorded at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg, in 1978, 1980 and 1982, produced by Manfred Eicher.
Oregon
First ECM album by Oregon (Ralph Towner, Paul McCandless, Collin Walcott, Glen Moore), recorded at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg, in March 1983, produced by Manfred Eicher and released in 1983.
Cloud Dance
Collin Walcott's first album as leader, released by ECM in 1976: Walcott on sitar and tabla with John Abercrombie (guitar), Dave Holland (double bass) and Jack DeJohnette (drums), recorded in March 1975 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg.
On the Wing
Ten-part instrumental suite by Stephan Micus, who plays every part through multitracking: sattar, mudbesh, hné, nay, suling, sho, shakuhachi, mandobahar, sitar, guitars, hang and gongs. Recorded 2003-2006 at MCM Studios. ECM 1987, 2006.
The Rain
Ghazal, Kayhan Kalhor (kamancheh) and Shujaat Husain Khan (sitar, vocals) with Sandeep Das (tabla), in three Persian and Indian improvisations recorded live by Swiss radio DRS in Bern on 28 May 2001, released by ECM in 2003.