Ad for Ravi Shankar and The Scragg Family<\/p><\/div>\n

That Sunday afternoon I drove up in the hills to the home where the concert took place. Walking through a shaded garden. I was led into a large living room which had a low platform stage set in one corner perhaps 12 by 8 feet in size. The stage was covered with several layers of Persian carpets on which were laid some pillows, two vases with bouquets of flowers, and two bowls of incense, whose smoke rose slowly into the still air of the room. The room soon filled with between 50 and 60 people, most of whom were of East Indian nationality. The musicians filed into the room and settled behind their instruments, seated on cushions with Pandit Shankar in the center of the stage. I must have been at most 10 ft from the stage and very attentive to what was happening.<\/p>\n

Very few words were said before the music began. The setting was very beautiful that afternoon as the late afternoon sun shone through the windows of the home, filtered by hanging branches of eucalyptus trees, whose long narrow leaves formed moving patterns across the oriental rugs. It was as if someone had arranged a light show to accompany the music! I was enthralled. The performance lasted almost three hours. I thanked the musicians and my hosts for being allowed to witness this experience. Later I kept in touch with Pandit Shankar over the next years. When I opened my own music Club in 1971, the Bluebird Caf\u00e9, my contacts with Ravi included the name of his friend and student Amya Das Gupta who was managing the Ravi Shankar School of Music in Los Angeles. Amya was persuaded to come up and give a performance on the sitar along with his wife and another friend.<\/p>\n

So we arranged a concert of Hindustani music at the Bluebird under very special conditions. Tickets were sold only in advance and covered the cost of admission, plus an authentic North Indian dinner which Amya and his wife cooked at our Caf\u00e9 2 hours before the start of the concert. People were asked to show up on time and we then shut the front door, hanging a \u201cclosed” sign in front. We also took the phone off the hook and disconnected the cash register so that everyone could focus on the music. The concert then took place to the delight of everyone there. We then moved the tables of the caf\u00e9 to form one long dining table and the Indian dinner was served, concluding the evening. I have always maintained that music is a form of food; that music and food therefore should be presented together.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"