World music's Ravi Shankar, daughter play at Benaroya

Ravi Shankar is world music's most important pioneer, but few people know he had to democratize Indian classical music at home before he could take it to the West.

"The old way of presentation," explained the still-vibrant 82-year-old sitar player, by telephone recently from San Francisco, "was not in concert halls, for a limited time. It was in aristocrats' houses, with, at the most, maybe 50 people gathering, all connoisseurs. And they didn't look at their watches." "The Music Room," a wonderful film by Satyajit Ray (whose "Apu Trilogy" Shankar scored), provides an excellent picture of music in the maharajah era.

However, you don't need to be a rich connoisseur to hear Shankar in Seattle. He and his 21-year-old daughter, Anoushka, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Benaroya Hall, with tabla players Tanmoy Bose and Bikram Ghosh.

"With my background of showmanship," said Shankar, "I innovated a whole way of platform performance, with a limited time, choosing proper dress, proper light, proper microphones, without sacrificing the quality of the music. I changed the whole pattern."

Shankar, a well-to-do sophisticate, grew up touring Europe and the States with his brother's dance troupe, meeting Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Cole Porter along the way. In 1938, Shankar was taken on as a disciple of Allauddin Khan, father of the great sarod player, Ali Akbar Khan.

In the 1950s, Shankar introduced Indian classical music — a Hindustani tradition from Northern India — to Europe, the Soviet Union and the U.S. In the '60s, the Beatles and the Monterey Pop and Woodstock festivals took care of the rest.

Today, Shankar is one of the most famous — and revered — musicians in the world. Though women have performed Indian classical music for half a century, father-daughter groups are uncommon. Did Shankar ever dream he'd tour with Anoushka?

"No!" he answered, with a good-natured laugh. "Neither did I think that I would have another daughter who was touring as a famous jazz singer." The reference, of course, was to Norah Jones, whose identity the family modestly kept secret until recently, in order, says Shankar, to protect Jones from being accused of taking advantage of her celebrity father.

Indian classical music and jazz both feature improvisation, but are quite different, a point Shankar often has been at pains to make. However, the sitarist enjoyed a celebrated relationship with John Coltrane, toward the end of the great saxophonist's life. Coltrane even named his son Ravi.

"I didn't have a very good idea of jazz musicians and their way of life," said Shankar, "but he seemed so different. He was a vegetarian, studying Rama Krishna books and yoga. We had three or four sittings. I taught him a lot. He was coming to see me in Los Angeles — he canceled all his concerts for six weeks — but then he died just before that. I was very sad. I loved him very much."

Paul de Barros: 206-464-3247 or pdebarros@seattletimes.com.