George Harrison - Interview 1975

I'm Don Ellis and I'm sitting here with George Harrison we've done something really extraordinary and I'd like to ask you I've seen this tape of a concert you did with Ravi Shankar and Friends and Albert Hall in London and it's something that I've never heard and I've been into Indian music for a good number of years and it's with all sorts of Ensemble and and and things that I've never experienced in Indian music and what what's it all about well apart from the people who are just into Ravi Shankar musical very soloists from India there's a lot of people who still think about it as you know just a sitar or just this you know just two people playing there's never been an opportunity to see like an orchestra which in western music you know you can see soloist or you can see orchestras I came across this piece of music Ravi had written long before I'd met him that he performed once in Bombay which was called Navarez ranga which used vocalists violin players flute players whole lot of percussion players it was like an orchestra small orchestra and since that time was trying to figure out a way of how to bring all these people to the West and for him to make special compositions in order to maybe open up the concept the western audiences have on Indian music there are so many Indian musicians here how did it happen that you've got them all in one place at the same time first of all we brought them to England 16 17 musicians brought into England he composed the music mainly to each day in the evening before the rehearsal or on his way out see he works like very spontaneous and so he'll have the people sitting down there have an idea and give each flaw on their part and then counted off and everybody comes in you think it's gonna sound crazy but it all fits and if one person plays the wrong notes out of 16 people Ravi's because such an ear he pick it up straight away so most of this is being composed right on the spot then arranged and rehearsed for a very short time who didn't have too much time and then they played the Albert Hall and a tour which went to Paris and Copenhagen and Germany just around Europe in this first piece there's a rhythmical cycle of seven three two two and one of the things I find most exciting about it is to follow the pattern that you hear on the little finger cymbals long short short and then relate what the for example the drummer's are doing to that pattern and when you do that you hear all these cross rhythms and and incredible things that they're that they're doing which in my opinion are far beyond the capabilities of the BEST WESTERN drummer that I've ever heard and when you're aware of this going on it just becomes an absolutely thrilling and incredible experience here one of the first people that I know of especially in the pop field to get into Indian music how did this come about I met Ravi from that point on it was mainly the involvement with him that drew me more and more into the music did you study with him well sort of yeah I spent a lot of time whenever I could just practicing and the great thing for me was that in pop music I never had any teacher now I never learned piano I never learned to read I never learned how to play the guitar actually there was never anybody who's you know to play basic scales so this was the first time I ever got involved with seriously trying to started the first point which was just playing scales and the whole thing gave me a bit of discipline which I'd never had before but it was mainly through him you see because during that period I'd been around him met all kinds of people and musicians and films and various heavyweight people but I don't know there was always something that wasn't impressing me you know and he was so intriguing because he was such a little person and yet had so much strength and so much power that I was became so attracted to the music then through the person and it was the deeper I got into it just the more the was you know well we all know this was like probably at the same time when the Beatles were at their peak of popularity how did your fellow compatriots in that group feel about Indian music and your involvement in it well the very first time probably played at home this was the first day I'd ever had a lesson for him they were all invited over and in the evening he played with a LaRocca and just played little concert to us and a few friends and I think I mean they were amazed and I'm sure they really got into it I mean Ringo in particular was just couldn't believe it in fact they had the opposite effect on ringer because for me I was just so intrigued just to try and grasp a little bit of it and mainly the sitar for me the stringed instrument it was so flexible you know and you get into blues and all those sort of styles the sitar just the way it's constructed well all their instruments actually the construction of them and the whole ancient mass of them the instruments are being developed so you can do certain things on them which you just can't do on Western instruments and likewise with the drums Ringo de Santa and watched a la rocca and then he ran a mile you know he just didn't want to go near them no because if you see it this close that's the funny thing with the sitar if you watch a concert and you can heal the sitar or you hear a record but if you sit up this close it's just amazing because it's like an orchestra in itself or the sympathetic strings you know you know he just hit one note in the end of this whole Orchestra comes out of there and it actually just looks I suppose with any master of anything is a person who makes something look very simple and a lot of the time with a levar complaint it just looks as those doing this and lobby's just doing this but what's coming at it is unbelievable leads us into this next piece very very well as a matter of fact because this one I found to be probably one of the most extraordinary pieces I've ever heard it's to me it's there's a very definite influence from the West and if I hear counterpoint I hear some harmonies it combines the vocal thing with with the instrumental and the rhythmic and it's sort of all in one and it's like the Swingle sing yeah it's it's everything and it's one of the most enjoyable things I ever heard made people get into in the 60s which became like an indie music fad sitar bloom but what happened was during that period I never played western music either to listen to or to play never touch the guitar for three years from yeah it's just a part from when I go and play on a session just to make an album then I'd play but I was always playing the sitar and after hearing so many of these musicians in India I realized I was not gonna get anywhere as a sitar player I was also forgetting everything about where I was coming from and it just as naturally as I got into it I got back out of it in as much as I decided I'm gonna be a pop musician that's really what I am and what happened also was that with the sitar boom there was thousands of people come in to concerts because Ravi had been working for years trying to establish Indian music there was a big boom and then it laughing back out again and then it took him another two years in order to re-establish himself the good thing that came from that was that it did expose so many more people to the music and they were much more serious about it by the time the boom had disappeared and the people who were left were actually real lovers of the music with the deeper understanding Ravi made some statements which were rather played up in the press at the time about he didn't want people to come to his concert getting spaced out on drugs if they wanted to hear Indian music he wanted them sober and you think that turned off a lot of because at that time a lot of people were into well a lot of people a lot of people get turned off by a lot of things he always felt cheated by the audience but also in where he's coming from I mean it's such a part it's also part of this the spiritual life in India the classical music and all those rockers are going so deep that it's and the training to be a musician is it's a spiritual training you know you get up and very early in the morning take your bath do your yoga and say your prayers and then practice for three hours and then you have your your coffee you know so it's like with such dedication that you know that's why he'd always expect people to have a little respect for it I mean I think that's the most difficult thing in the West because everybody's no interest wants to boogie and it's hard for to understand exactly where it's coming from but you know one of the things that impressed me is just concerning the overall thing of the music was the very first lesson I had we were players learning scales from the telephone rang I put the sitar down on the floor and stood up and went to go out to answer the phone and I picked my foot up to step over in the event pane for the first thing you learn is to have respect for the instrument and it's and that's fantastic you know it takes respect in order to appreciate fully anything you know yes well in this piece that is the finale that we're that we're about to hear it's based on a lot of folk rhythms and and I think the inspiration came from from folk things isn't this sort of common at the end of a concert to get really light and happy then again after all this year this sort of let it flow I think it's I really congratulate you for doing something that is absolutely extraordinary and couldn't have taken place without you good well let's do it again sometime everybody's enjoying it

Channel: GeorgeHarrisonTV

Views: 87,638

Keywords: GEORGE HARRISON, INTERVIEW, 1975, RAVI SHANKAR, INDIA, INDIAN MUSIC, DON ELLIS, THE BEATLES, RARE

Id: bA33K0YbGgg

Length: 11min 17sec (677 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 13 2019