Ravi Shankar - At the Monterey International Pop Festival (1967) [ Remastered 1998]

This is one of Ravi Shankar's most famous recordings. As he describes it, he was very nervous about playing a festival that consisted only of pop and rock artists, and to an audience perhaps unfamiliar with (and uninterested in) classical Indian music.

Shankar's music is extremely reflective on this CD. However, it is not lazy or sluggish, but finely wrought, intense and hypnotic, and melodically rich. Two long pieces are heard here with a short tabla solo, based on a complicated 12 beat rhythmical pattern, heard in the middle. This concert, recorded in 1967 at the height of the flower power movement, brought international fame to the master sitar player at a time when United States audiences were just becoming more globally aware.