What Ravi Shankar did for the sitar, his brother-in-law and frequent collaborator, Ali Akbar Khan, did for the sarod. A master of the 17-to-25-stringed fretless instrument, Khan was second only to Shankar in popularizing Indian classical music in the Western world.
The son of revered Hindustani musician and teacher Allauddin Khan, Ali Akbar Khan was born in Bangladesh in 1922. Khan put on his first formal performance at age 14, and ascended to the rank of court musician for the Maharajah of Jodhpur. After India’s independence, he moved to Bombay, where he continued to teach and became heavily involved in film scoring, working with filmmakers Satyajit Ray, Chetan Anand, and Tapan Sinha. Around this time he embarked on his lifelong mission as a cultural ambassador for Indian classical music, establishing schools around the world and appearing on television to perform and discuss the music’s significance.
When former Beatle George Harrison put together the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971, Khan and Shankar were among the included performers, and opened both of the two shows held at Madison Square Garden to benefit refugees from war-torn East Pakistan. Concert attendees and listeners to the live album that followed primarily were interested in seeing Harrison and his famous friends, and weren’t entirely sure what to make of a lengthy instrumental piece, but for many casual Western listeners, it would be their first exposure to Indian classical music.
Khan continued to spread his musical gospel for the rest of his life, and along the way picked up a MacArthur Fellowship in 1991, a National Heritage Fellowship in 1997, and five Grammy nominations. His recording career was sporadic, but his Signature Series recordings are considered the definitive documents of his music, and his album Duet, featuring violinist L. Subramaniam, exemplifies the traditional sound of a classic Indian duet. He died in California in 2009, and schools in America, Switzerland, and India still bear his name.
