Ramnad Krishnan - 'Vidwan: Songs of the Carnatic Tradition' (Nonesuch Explorer)

These four sides of Carnatic classical music were recorded while the musicians were in a residency at Wesleyan. No date is given but this came out in '68 so one would have to assume it was from around this time - during the summer of love, perhaps? Krishnan has a strong and reedy voice, and it's recorded really up-front, making these Telugu lyrics really reverberate. Of course I don't know what they're saying, and I don't know anything about Carnatic music, but that's the escapism of music. Not that when listening to this material (or anything else equally impenetrable to me on a linguistic level) I make up my own meanings; maybe when I was younger I did or I tried to interpret a narrative through non-verbal moods and images at least, but now I just ride along with the sounds, harmonies, layers, assonances and dissonances. Most of these tracks are loooong (10-20 minutes), built around little more than a violin, some percussion, and the everlasting tampura drone that makes Indian music so distinct. V. Thyagarajan is the violinist, and he plays it seated and upright, like a tiny cello - this allows him to saw in and out quickly around the notes and this leads to some stunning, stark passages where everything drops out except the violin and tampura. This is recorded in a way that makes it sound somewhat tinny, or maybe a better word would be 'crisp'; the little bells on the percussion instruments sound like they are right here in the room with me, and that presence gives it a lasting physical feeling, especially due to its length. Four sides are a lot of Carnatic tradition, and each seems to be punctuated with the same structural shifts as the others - solos, long jammy passages, and vocal fore-fronting. The fourth side is billed as an improvisation, so I spent the whole record looking forward to it, hoping that I would be hearing some sort of freakout AMM/No Neck Blues Band style jam. But alas, it was an improvisation around fairly tightly defined Carnatic traditional structures. Which is to say that its still a fine side o' vinyl, as fine as the other three, but I didn't detect any increased freedom or looseness here; this is hardly Tristano's 'Digression' or Coltrane's Ascension - but that's OK, its not necessary at all for everyone in the 60s to let loose in a wild way. Krishnan died in the early 70s but is still well regarded in this world; Thyagarajan popped up on a lot of recordings by Jon Higgins, who is also one of Carnatic music's greatest practitioners, despite being originally from Massachusetts (thanks, Wikipedia).