Ravi Shankar
Three Ragas

The self-referentiality of Western civilization claims, and perhaps presumes, to consign Ravi Shankar to history for having introduced George Harrison first, and then the flower children, to the allure and secrets of the sitar and Indian music.
What the West seems to ignore is that, besides being an incredibly gifted musician, Ravi Shankar was, and still is, a great interpreter and composer, an undisputed master in the art of improvisation and a profound connoisseur of countless ragas, capable - with all due respect to Scaruffi - of one of the greatest masterpieces of 20th-century music: "Three Ragas."

Growing up in British-ruled India, Ravi had the opportunity from a very young age to tread the stage and travel the world, as part of his older brother Uday's dance and music company, of which the multi-instrumentalist Ustad Allauddin Khan was the main attraction at the time. However, when his dance career seemed to be on the rise, the outbreak of the world conflict in the old continent, which effectively prevented the company from traveling, led Ravi Shankar to continue his musical training in Maihar, a remote village in the most fanatical and religious part of India, under the guidance of the same Allauddin Khan, who would become his guru and who, in seven long years of teachings, would unveil the secrets of the sitar and the true essence of the raga to the young man.

Classical Indo-European musical tradition is in fact primarily oral and not based on semiography as classical Western music is. Among the many structural and formal divergences between two seemingly antithetical worlds, the essence of the raga is perhaps the most difficult concept for a Westerner to assimilate. Often misunderstood as a simple ascending and descending scale, the raga is the projection of one's inner spirit through the instrument, it is the manifestation of the artist's life breath, in which the very essence of the universe is reflected. Similarly to the concept of Kama Sutra, it arises from the harmonious union between man (the rhythm) and woman (the melody), and thus the sitar is its instrument par excellence, having of the six (or seven) strings, three intended for rhythmic accompaniment, and the remaining three (or four) for the inlay of the melody.
In Indo-European culture, the raga is a spiritual discipline in search of the ultimate meaning, a way to reach God. The improvisation at the heart of every raga, therefore, is never an end in itself but always aimed towards the depth of one's inner self, and this makes it one of the fundamental differences from jazz.
Only after years of intense practice and discipline (sadhana), and under the supervision of one’s guru, can the artist infuse prana (the breath of life) into his music, which is why this tradition has been passed down orally since time immemorial.

These premises provide the fundamental tools to approach the listening of a masterpiece of this magnitude. The experience Shankar gained in old Europe, where the sitar was considered a "bizarre" instrument with an "exotic" timbre, and his ascetic and at times fanatical musical preparation led Ravi in 1956 to conceive of this album as the essential compendium of classical Indo-European music. It is important to point out how the three chosen ragas ("Raga Ahir Bhairav", "Raga Simhendramadhyamam", and "Raga Jog") belong to three different melodic families (including the Carnatic branch of South India), and symbolize three distinct phases of the day. In particular, the B-side of the vinyl, the sprawling "Raga Jog", one of the most widespread and practiced ragas of the night, represents, from its height of twenty-eight minutes, the indisputable and unapproachable peak of his entire musical production, as well as one of the most exhilarating and spiritually elevated moments of 20th-century music. Based on the classic pentatonic scale with the addition of a chromatic note, and thus deeply linked to the canons of the blues, "Raga Jog" develops traditionally in alap, jor gat and jhala, accompanied by Chatur Lal’s tabla and Prodjot Sen’s tamboura, astounding with Ravi’s ability to create tension, surprise, and all sorts of climaxes through improvisation along a single melodic line. His sitar is fluid, at times lyrical, always intense and intoxicating. A musical and spiritual experience that is both involving and shocking. Simply immense.

The self-referentiality of Western civilization, for something to be taken seriously, needs comparisons, rankings, for everything to be reported on scales of absolute values, ridiculous and unreliable as they often may be. In this context, "Three Ragas", with its aura of spirituality, with its nerve-wracking tension toward the infinite, represents the "A Love Supreme" of Eastern civilization, although perhaps it would be more correct to affirm the exact opposite, and not only for chronological reasons. Indeed, John Coltrane became fascinated at unanticipated times with Ravi Shankar's modal music and the spiritual force that his sitar unleashed in the improvisation of ragas. The meeting between the two occurred in 1964, shortly before the recording of "A Love Supreme" and prior to the famous meeting with George Harrison. What struck Shankar was Coltrane's tormented soul, who was laboriously seeking the sense of peace and harmony that reigned in "Three Ragas", and who would find it only in a supreme love (not to mention naming his third son Ravi Coltrane).

Yet the self-referentiality of Western civilization abhors notions and, for the message to arrive, or at least imprint itself lastingly in the subconscious, feeds on short and catchy slogans. This is why I tell you that "Three Ragas" is the greatest affair your brain will ever have with your soul. Clearer than that...