Ravi & Anoushka Shankar: Live In Bangalore (DVD Review)

Jeff Tamarkin on December 17, 2015

Such a sweet, momentous occasion: Recorded in February 2012, just months before his death at 92, Ravi Shankar’s Bangalore concert served as his farewell to India but also as a celebration of all he’d given. The adoration in the room is palpable from the moment Shankar is seated. “I hope you recognize me. I’ve gained a little weight,” he deadpans, then points to the bushy white beard he’d grown in his last years, to hearty audience laughter. The camera pans to his smiling daughter, Anoushka, who has also developed into one of the world’s foremost sitarists over the past couple of decades. And then, accompanied by a quartet of musicians, they play four ragas over the course of nearly two hours, and it’s apparent that up until the very end, even as his physical health was leaving him, Ravi Shankar never really lost a thing: none of his skill, his grace, his soul. The package includes Ravi and Anoushka Shankar’s tandem set on DVD and two CDs; the DVD also features a solo set by Anoushka that is breathtaking in its own right. The Shankar legacy is in very good hands.

Artist: Ravi & Anoushka Shankar
Album: Live In Bangalore
Label: East Meets West