Ravi Shankar - Live at the Monterey International Pop Festival
This was the first recording of Indian music that I ever heard. It features the great master of the tabla, Ustad Allarakha Qureshi. He’s the father of the present day great tabla player Zakir Hussain. When I heard that record, I said right then: ‘I want to learn how to play that instrument, the tabla’. It was years later, I was in Frank’s Drum Shop in Chicago and I saw on the bulletin board, there was a piece of paper that said: ‘Anyone who wants to learn how to play the Indian tabla, call this number, my name is Paul Raman.’ I wrote it down and a couple of weeks later I called him. He said, ‘meet me next week, we can meet and discuss it’. I got there a little early and the guy who was manning the store, we talked for a while. Then Paul showed up and we went to a backroom. He demonstrated the tablas for me. I bought a pair of tablas from the shop and I would come every week, take a lesson with him. About five months later, he said, I see that you’re serious about this, I would like you to come to my home and study. I studied with him for quite a few years, and became very close to his family. It all came from listening to that Ravi Shankar record.