About this Artist

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Editorial Reviews

Presenting the best of maestro Ravi Shankar's cross-cultural experiments, Bridges paints an especially handsome portrait of the sitar master now into his seventh decade of performance. His stint with the Beatles et al., and at Woodstock and the Monterey Pop Festival have made one aspect of Shankar's East-West career the stuff of legend. But far more satisfying have been his recordings with composer Philip Glass, his striking Russian-influenced Inside the Kremlin, and his fusion free-for-all Tana Mala, which featured George Harrison, Al Kooper, and banks of electronic instrumentation. Collecting tracks from each of these recordings, Bridges is a friendly primer for Shankar's more rigorous collaborations. The Russian numbers in particular are of transcendent beauty; "Shanti Mantra" and "Sandhya Raga" showcase an Indian contingent including Shankar, his late son Shubho, and stars Tarun Battacharya, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Ronu Majumdar, and others along with a Russian chorus and chamber orchestra. "Prashanti" and "Ragas in Minor Scale," from Shankar's Passages album, are based on themes from Glass, and they form a neat, sui generis style. Paired with Shankar's early West Meets East with Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Bridges is a fine sampling of Shankar at his most ambitious. Mark Schwartz, Barnes & Noble

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