#ragas

[mon-nid]

Marian Zazeela playing the Tanpura, c. 1979

[kemetic-dreams]

Spiritual jazz (or astral jazz)[1] is a sub-genre of jazz that originated in the United States during the 1960s. The genre is hard to characterize musically but draws from free, avant-garde and modal jazz and thematically focuses on transcendence and spirituality. John Coltrane's 1965 album A Love Supreme is considered landmark in the genre.

Origins

Pharoah Sanders in 1981.

Critics usually associate spiritual jazz with the 1960s but the beginnings of the genre can be traced to the 1940s and 1950s in works such as Black, Brown and Beige by Duke Ellington, Zodiac Suite by Mary Lou Williams, and Jazz at the Vespers by George Lewis.

During the 1960s in the United States, the civil rights movement was occurring, causing societal change and political movements. As a result, African-American people gained more freedom to celebrate their culture and to express themselves religiously. This led to a desire to push the conventions of jazz, with some artists choosing to search for transcendence and spirituality in their music.

John Coltrane's 1965 album A Love Supreme is generally considered the genesis of spiritual jazz though Coltrane can be heard developing the sound on the song "Spiritual" recorded four years earlier. Treblezine wrote "Spiritual jazz begins, essentially, with John Coltrane," while Pitchfork wrote "This musical exploration [of spirituality] was epitomized by tenor saxophonist John Coltrane". A Love Supreme and other works by John Coltrane inspired other jazz musicians to create music searching for transcendence. For example, Pharoah Sanders and Don Cherry were considered to have taken inspiration from Coltrane's spiritual works.

After John Coltrane's death in 1967, his wife Alice Coltrane and Sanders—both who had previously played with Coltrane—were some of the first to continue the sound of the genre. Coltrane's 1971 album Journey in Satchidananda combined spiritual jazz with influences from Hindustani classical music, after her journey into spirituality with help from Swami Satchidananda. Journey in Satchidananda used ragas, harps, sitars, and ouds to achieve its sound. Pharoah Sanders took inspiration from Arabic, Indian, and Afro-Cuban music to create early spiritual jazz albums, including Tauhid (1967) and Karma

[noosphe-re]

Melakarta Ragas

A raga or raag (IAST: rāga; also raaga or ragam; literally 'coloring', 'tingeing', 'dyeing') is a melodic framework for improvisation akin to a melodic mode in Indian classical music. The rāga is a unique and central feature of the classical Indian music tradition, and as a result has no direct translation to concepts in classical European music. Each rāga is an array of melodic structures with musical motifs, considered in the Indian tradition to have the ability to "colour the mind" and affect the emotions of the audience. (via Wikipedia)

[navaratna]

udayaravichandrika is a such a good example of an oxymoron! (udayaravichandrika is a carnatic raga btw). like udayaravi means rising sun while chandrika means moonlight

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Greece fell in love with Nargis and Madhubala in the 1950s – and is still singing songs of love

And they will not be all Greek to you: A new genre of music, indoprepi, was built on the musical structures – even ragas – of the Hindi film songs.

A vibrant Indo-Greek culture, centred largely around what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan, dominated the region for 200 years after the retreat of Alexander.  But even after the dissipation of political power, Greece’s influence on India can be seen in coins, sculpture and philosophy.

For modern Indians these rich linkages are likely to be nothing but ancient history. Most would be hard pressed to identify any touch points between the two countries, beyond the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Greeks, on the other hand, would easily point to a contemporary instance of cultural exchange – music.

[ask-siro]

[Rayas and Pink are open for asks!]

Rayas belongs to my love! @angelgcxs

Reply to @themeowsticvigilante

[bluetapes]

This fucking album. It's painting my winter a whole new set of colours.

Buy here https://bluetapes.bandcamp.com/album/blue-thirty-two

[chrysonoe]

I accidentally created a new ship while practicing. >.> Introducing the Throgas ship, with Throk and Ragas! (the latter had no name, actually, so I came up with a name. tbh it's the short version of random galra soldier xD)

I always liked Throk and I love difficult relationships! So this time it's commanderxsoldier! I hope they will have a nice time together! I want to try to always draw Ragas with his helmet on, bc it is a funny thought xD