Since this month we are featuring two musicians (Dave Liebman and John McLaughlin) who have helped put Indian music on the map, we thought it might be a good time to recommend some albums of jazz-India ventures.
Most of our knowledge of Indian music is reminiscent of the scene in the film Concert For Bangladesh where the people are applauding Ravi Shankar after he evokes notes for a few minutes. After the applause dies down, he humbly says through the microphone to the packed Madison Square Garden, “If you like how we are tuning up, you’ll really like when we actually play a song”.
The Apu Trilogy-this is a collection of three movies from the late 1950s by Satyajit Ray. Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956) and The World of Apu (1959) all feature traditional music performed by Ravi Shankar
- Improvisations-back in 1962, alto saxist and flautist Bud Shank did a series of
recordings with Ravi Shankar and bassist Gary Peacock. This guy also arguably started the bossa nova movement; sure wasn’t a slacker! - John Coltrane “India”-this song was recorded during Coltrane’s marathon 1961 stay at the Village Vanguard.
Coltrane’s soprano soars over the drone, sounding like the traditional shehnai, and a couple of the outtakes actually include guest strings by Ahmed Abdul-Malik. - Alice Coltrane: Sometimes dismissed due to her marriage to John, Alice released a series of albums in the late 60s and early 70s (A Monastic Trio, Huntington Ashram Monastery, Ptah, The El Daoud) that meld jazz, Asia and
mysticism like few others. - The Beatles: “Norwegian Wood”, “He Said, She Said,” and “Within/Without You”
were three pop songs from the mid 60s that introduced most Baby Boomers to the sounds of India, either via the tensile sitar or the droning beats and reeds. - John McLaughlin-David Liebman: My Goal’s Beyond-This
1970 session , with McLaughlin on acoustic guitar and Liebman on flute and sax ,is a timeless melding of flavors. - L. Subramaniam-A South Indian version of Jean-Luc Ponty, Subramanian’s
fiendishly frenetic violin work mixed classical, jazz and Southern Indian tones in a rich and penetrating way, with albums such as Conversations (with Stephane Grappelli) sonic tour de forces. 
Carlos Santana-John McLaughlin: Love, Devotion, Surrender -at the time, both Santana and McLaughlin were disciples of Shri Chinmoy, with this 1972 album mixing Indian sonic means, messages and searing guitar solos like no other.
Steve Smith and Vital Information. Drummer Steve Smith is one of the few Americans who has mastered the art of Indian vocal percussion, called “Konnakol” and he uses it to great effect on his Heart of the City album- Samitha Bea Benjamin-This South African vocalist used Indian half tones in her singing during a one-off set of duets with Duke Ellington back in 1963. It’s a
real ringer in the Ducal catalogue.