Dawn of Indian Music in the West [Hardcover]

Peter Lavezzoli (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 24, 2006

A little more than 50 years ago, in 1955, Ali AkbarKhan issued an LP called Music of India: Morning and Evening Ragas, with spoken introduction by violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Until then, Indian music was terra incognita in the West. When the same album was reissued as a CD in 1995, under the title Then and Now,it was nominated for a Grammy.

In the last 50 years, there has been the explosive influence of Indian music and culture in the West. Words such as karma, yoga, raga, nirvana, all once unknown here, have entered the language. Most famously, the wonders of the Indian musical world were spread by George Harrison and the Beatles. The music also had a profound effect on Mickey Hart and the Grateful Dead, John McLaughlin (Mahavishnu Orchestra), the Byrds, John Coltrane, and many others. The annus mirabilis 1967 saw the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi spreading the wonders of transcendental meditation, Swami Prabhupada founding the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in New York City, and the growing influence of Ravi Shankar. Four years later, George Harrison organized the groundbreaking Concert for Bangladesh, the first charity event of rock. Shankar had already wowed audiences at the Monterey Pop Festival, and he achieved stardom at the Madison Square Garden event. (Where Westerners, new to the sounds they heard, applauded after the musicians had finished tuning their instruments!)

Peter Lavezzoli, a Buddhist and a musician, has a rare ability to articulate the personal feeling of music, and at the same time narrate a history. Lavezzoli has interviewed more than a score of musicians, such as Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, David Crosby, Philip Glass, Zakir Hussain, Mickey Hart, Zubin Mehta, and John McLaughlin.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Peter Lavezzoli's study is a gloriously detailed explanation of Hindustani classical music...It takes some education for untrained ears to learn how to listen to Indian classical music, and Lavezzoli does a great job of explaining concepts like raga and tala.... the music is dissected with scholarly precision while the cosmic implication are also investigated thoroughly."- Brian J. Bowe, harpmagazine.com, September/ October 2006

'One of the book's strengths is that it embraces the whole footprint of Indian music...Lavezzoli is sure-footed in his discussions of music theory and practice, and the interviews with key figures, reproduced...in conversation format are useful resources...This book does fill a noticeable gap on the shelves of university and public libraries for serious Indian music enthusiasts.'

Oliver Craske, Times Higher Education Supplement, 27th October 2006 (Oliver Craske Times Educational Supplement )

'Lavezzoli... presents an excellent overview of the style of Hindustani, or North Indian, classical music. He presents minutely detailed transcriptions of his interviews, all with insightful commentary, of the principal Indian and Western musicians who have been the prime movers behind the presentation and appreciation of Indian music in the West. Almost a reference book in its dense coverage, this book is nevertheless highly readable and entertaining... Summing Up: Highly recommended.- CHOICE February 2007

'[a] compendious and fascinating book...It is impossible to do justice to the scope of Lavezzoli's findings in a short review: suffice to say that whether you want to know exactly how the John McLaughlin and Zakir Hussain's Shakti came about, or to follow the Ravi Shankar-Frank Zappa-Peter Gabriel trail, everything you need to know is here in abundance.' ~ Michael Church, Songlines

(Michael Church )

'Lavezzoli's focus is sharp, primarily Americentric and, without a shadow of a doubt, the finest treatment of what most of Jazzwise's readers would understand by dawn in the context...The heart of the book is a series of marvellous, illuminating Q&A interviews...The only real problem I had with this book was continually going back and re-reading sections instead of reviewing it. High, high praise indeed.'

~ Ken Hunt, Jazzwise, Feb 07

(Ken Hunt )

"With the publication of Peter Lavezzoli's detailed and focused account of the impact of the Indian subcontinent's music on non-Indian, specifically the West's music, readers finally have a work that complements Gerry Farrell's Indian Music and the West (1997)... [an] eloquent, passionate and inspirational book."

(Ken Hunt, Froots )

-Mention. Froots/ March 2007

(Froots )

"This historical study is full of detailed information about a disparate collection of the most inventive musicians of the 20th century ... When reading this book you really feel you are being guided by someone with a highly developed intuitive feel for integrity and truth in music."

(Kate Wharton in Straight No Chaser Strategic Review )

2006 winner of the ARSC Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research.

“Peter Lavezzoli’s study is a gloriously detailed explanation of Hindustani classical music…It takes some education for untrained ears to learn how to listen to Indian classical music, and Lavezzoli does a great job of explaining concepts like raga and tala…. the music is dissected with scholarly precision while the cosmic implication are also investigated thoroughly.”- Brian J. Bowe, harpmagazine.com, September/ October 2006

'One of the book's strengths is that it embraces the whole footprint of Indian music...Lavezzoli is sure-footed in his discussions of music theory and practice, and the interviews with key figures, reproduced...in conversation format are useful resources...This book does fill a noticeable gap on the shelves of university and public libraries for serious Indian music enthusiasts.'

Oliver Craske, Times Higher Education Supplement, 27th October 2006 (, Times Educational Supplement )

'Lavezzoli… presents an excellent overview of the style of Hindustani, or North Indian, classical music. He presents minutely detailed transcriptions of his interviews, all with insightful commentary, of the principal Indian and Western musicians who have been the prime movers behind the presentation and appreciation of Indian music in the West. Almost a reference book in its dense coverage, this book is nevertheless highly readable and entertaining... Summing Up: Highly recommended.- CHOICE February 2007

'[a] compendious and fascinating book...It is impossible to do justice to the scope of Lavezzoli's findings in a short review: suffice to say that whether you want to know exactly how the John McLaughlin and Zakir Hussain's Shakti came about, or to follow the Ravi Shankar-Frank Zappa-Peter Gabriel trail, everything you need to know is here in abundance.' ~ Michael Church, Songlines

(, )

'Lavezzoli's focus is sharp, primarily Americentric and, without a shadow of a doubt, the finest treatment of what most of Jazzwise's readers would understand by dawn in the context...The heart of the book is a series of marvellous, illuminating Q&A interviews...The only real problem I had with this book was continually going back and re-reading sections instead of reviewing it. High, high praise indeed.'

~ Ken Hunt, Jazzwise, Feb 07

(, )

"With the publication of Peter Lavezzoli's detailed and focused account of the impact of the Indian subcontinent's music on non-Indian, specifically the West's music, readers finally have a work that complements Gerry Farrell's Indian Music and the West (1997)... [an] eloquent, passionate and inspirational book."

(, )

-Mention. Froots/ March 2007

(, )

"This historical study is full of detailed information about a disparate collection of the most inventive musicians of the 20th century ... When reading this book you really feel you are being guided by someone with a highly developed intuitive feel for integrity and truth in music."

(, Strategic Review )

About the Author

Peter Lavezzoli is the author of The King of All, Sir Duke: Ellington and the Artistic Revolution, which is also published by Continuum. As a percussionist and vocalist, Lavezzoli explores the connection between musical and spiritual expression. He lives in Fort Lauderdale, FL

Product Details

• Hardcover: 456 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (April 24, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826418155
• ISBN-13: 978-0826418159
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,340,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The History of East-Meets-West, April 6, 2007

By 

India Currents (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dawn of Indian Music in the West (Hardcover)

Among the many thought-provoking quotes in Peter Lavezzoli's new book is this one from tabla player Tanmoy Bose. "If you talk to any music lover in the West, they know more about [Indian music] than Indians ... they have a thirst for it, and they are very critical in the West for that reason." At first, I was tempted to reply that these Western fans are so enthusiastic because they (we) are such a small minority. In India, interest in Indian classical music runs the gamut from devotion to mild interest. There is, for example, a sense of national pride that makes Indians feel they ought to like classical music even if they don't. In the West, you are either a devoted fan or completely ignorant on the subject, and it often seems to us that all the devoted fans are gathered in the Bay Area. However, Lavezzoli paints a significantly different picture, arguing quite convincingly that Indian music has deeply influenced both American and European music for over half a century.

Peter Lavezzoli's first book, "The King of All, Sir Duke," took a controversial approach to biography. He devoted relatively little space to Duke Ellington, the book's ostensible subject matter, and instead wrote about Ellington's influence on other prominent musicians (including Frank Zappa, Stevie Wonder, and George Clinton). His newest book, "The Dawn of Indian Music in the West: Bhairavi," follows a similar format, but it is not a story of one musician's impact on other musicians. It is the story of the influences of one entire musical culture on another, and the tracing of those influences from connection to connection is the perfect format. Lavezzoli's goal is to document every aspect of that impact with interviews and historical summaries. The result is a long and engrossing read, full of remarkable anecdotes and thoughtful discussions with some of the most important creative people in many different Indian and Western musical domains.

About a fifth of this book will probably produce a sense of déjà vu for regular readers of this magazine. There are detailed interviews with many local artists, including Cheb i Sabbah, Ali Akbar Khan, Zakir Hussain, Terry Riley, George Ruckert, and Mickey Hart. If you know little or nothing about these people and their music, you get all the introduction you need. But no matter how much you may think you know, Lavezzoli has new information for you. Those of us who live in the Bay Area know that there are lots of Americans and Europeans who have carefully studied Indian music. But Lavezzoli shows us who was first, where they did it, and how things developed from there.

The book is subtitled "Bhairavi" because the first significant musical contact between Indian and Western classical music was a recording of that raga in 1955 by Ali Akbar Khan. Bhairavi is also a morning raga traditionally played to close a concert that has gone on past midnight, so Lavezzoli also uses the word as an allusion to the "dawn" of Indian music. This recording was the first 33 rpm long-playing record of Indian classical music. Prior to this, the only recordings of Indian music were 78 rpm records, which had poor sound quality and lasted five minutes or less. This was also the first performance of Indian classical music in the West, except for an unrecorded concert at Columbia University by Inayat Khan. (It is a tribute to Lavezzoli's thoroughness that what little is known about that Columbia concert is in this book.) The Bhairavi recording included a verbal introduction by Yehudi Menuhin, who had discovered Indian music while touring India. Menuhin's endorsement helped to convince his colleagues that this music was a serious disciplined art form, not an exotic ethnic curiosity. Lavezzoli has some interesting parallels between the harsh pedagogic methods used by both Indian gurus and Western conservatories, which justified labeling both traditions as "classical."

There were, however, parallel influences occurring in rock and jazz, spearheaded by George Harrison and John Coltrane respectively, who were both great admirers of Ravi Shankar. Rock and jazz musicians were attracted not only by the complex use of rhythms and microtones, but also by the freedom to improvise, and by altered states of spiritual consciousness. These musicians usually associated altered states with drugs, creating a controversy that endures to this day. For most Westerners during the 1960s, Ravi Shankar's sitar was the soundtrack for drug experiences. This was a serious misunderstanding: Shankar did compose scores for psychedelic movies like Chappaqua, but he also insisted that his audiences not use drugs. Lavezzoli asks almost all of his interviewees about drugs, and discovers a spectrum of opinions that reveal another great contribution of Indian music to the West.

Western music had fragmented into two conflicting elements: the emotional drug-tinged intensity of improvised jazz and rock, and the tightly controlled intellectual discipline of European classical music. Because Indian music had never separated emotion and thought, it could show Westerners how to reunite them. It challenged rock musicians to acquire discipline, enabled jazz musicians to see their improvisation as a spiritual practice, and reminded European classical musicians that music is not just marks on paper, but is played by a musician, and heard with the ears. Sometimes Western musicians tried to capture the mood of Indian music with little awareness of technical details. Other times, they took Indian techniques and reworked them to create very different moods. But Lavezzoli shows us that all forms of Western music now have a healthier relationship to each other, and to the rest of the world because of the Indian influence. Perhaps in the new millennium, there may even be Westerners who will be great virtuosos of Indian music. Will this music then still be Indian, and will its players still be Westerners?

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How the West Woke Up, June 11, 2006

By 

Stephen Silberman "writer, Wired Magazine" (SF, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dawn of Indian Music in the West (Hardcover)

Peter Lavezzoli's "The Dawn of Indian Music in the West: Bhairavi" is a superbly written, astonishingly comprehensive, and deeply important book. Not only is it a must-read for anyone interested in how classical Indian musical forms were embraced by Western audiences -- laying the groundwork for the proliferation of so-called world beat and other fusions -- but it's also essential reading for anyone interested in how Western musical forms like jazz and rock and roll evolved into the complex, elegant, and risk-taking journeys of discovery that they are now, in the post-Byrds and post-Beatles age.

This book is crammed with fascinating anecdotes about and probing interviews of the musicians whose own creativity was transformed by their exposure to Indian music, and the result is a book that provides one of the deepest examinations of the global revolution in music over the past four decades. The careers of pop stars like the Byrds' Roger McGuinn and David Crosby are shown in a new light; the breathtaking evolutions of John Coltrane and the Beatles are analyzed in ways that are completely fresh; and such nearly forgotten geniuses and innovators as Collin Walcott and Nadia Boulanger are finally given their due.

I had done quite a bit of reading in these areas before stumbling across Lavezzoli's book in a bookstore, but every time I pick up this book, I learn something new about music I've loved for years, from Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" to Walcott's "Cloud Dance" to Coltrane's "A Love Supreme." Lavezzoli's prose style is top-drawer -- conversational and obviously passionate about its subject, yet also highly learned and insightfully critical -- which makes the book a real pleasure to read.

One of the finest books of the year, and one of the best music books I've read in a decade.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kate Wharton, Straight No Chaser (UK), October 6, 2006

By 

Editorial Review - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dawn of Indian Music in the West (Hardcover)

This historical study is full of detailed information about a disparate collection of the most inventive musicians of the 20th century, all drawn together by the thread of a fascination with India. The book gives equal attention to legends like John Coltrane, and more marginal avant-garde figures like Don Cherry, John Mayer (of Indo-Jazz Fusions), and John Handy. It also refers to rock stars like David Crosby, and contemporary classical composers like Philip Glass. Each musician's biography is woven into the text, so the entire book (nearly 500 pages) gives you an intense impression of the deep spirituality of this generation of musicians.

Peter Lavezzoli is a very astute critic of the key albums of this movement, and I learned a lot from his detailed discussion of Duke Ellington's "Far East Suite," Coltrane's "India," and Don Cherry's "Mu." When reading this book, you really feel you are being guided by someone with a highly developed intuitive feel for integrity and truth in music, as he himself is a musician who is concerned, as he admits, with "the connection between musical and spiritual expression."

In this book, historical narratives are interspersed with interviews with the leading musicians in Western and Indian music, such as Terry Riley and Shujaat Khan. These interviews are not your average magazine interviews, however, as the central concern of Lavezzoli is always wisdom, and his questions are always subtle and searching. If you glanced at this book, you might be put off by the way the text is crammed on the page, the lack of margins and smallness of type making it seem somehow a hurried book or not carefully thought out, but do not be deceived by bad design--this book is a true labour of love. It will inspire all musicians to take their work on to the next level, and it will inspire all record collectors to rush out and get hold of Alice Coltrane's "World Galaxy."