Bismillah Khan

Bismillah Khan: The Shenai's Humble Master

by Chris May
November 29, 2007

For most people in the West, classical Indian raga music means one instrument, the sitar, and one player, Ravi Shankar. Quite why Shankar came to be considered the greatest modern sitar player over Vilayat Khan and several others, and the sitar as the primary raga instrument over the sarod or the shenai, is debatable. But serendipity probably played a part--when the Beatles' George Harrison started experimenting with Indian music in the mid-1960s, Shankar was the musician he lionized. The West's ...