Tabu
Korla Pandit At The Pipe Organ
Cover Photo by Tom King at San Francisco's most exotic restaurant, Alexis' Tangier.
Mr. King chose this famous Nob Hill setting as being most fitting in lighting and atmosphere to serve as a background for Korla Pandit's personality.
Fantasy 3288
Mr. Pandit, born in New Delhi, India, was a musically gifted child. His father, a member of one of India's first families, and his European-born mother nurtured the talent, allowing it to expand and ripen in an international atmos- phere. Journeying to Europe, England, and eventually to America, the handsome prodigy continued his formal study, finishing at the University of Chicago.
The professional career of Korla Pandit has been a suc- cession of impressive "firsts" in concert and television presentations, nationally as well as locally, in Hollywood and New York. He is responsible for several innovations in organ construction and intepretation, including Indian drum and percussive effects previously untried. His greatest success has been in television (Mr. Pandit gave the first all-musical TV program in Hollywood in 1949), and his one-hour weekly show in California won countless admirers and many awards. He has performed, too, in churches and temples on numerous occasions.
Korla Pandit brings deep spiritual contemplation to his music, but his primary goal is to create beautiful music for you, the listener. His skill and finesse, combined with a profound conviction in the divine nature of music, explain why listening to his music is a refreshing emotional experience. In Korla Pandit's own words:
"Music may not save your soul, but it will
Cause your soul to be worth saving."
Fantasy 3288
From the back cover: THE BLAZING, BROWN EYES of Korla Pandit could charm a cobra. Seated at the pipe organ, his turban-topped face has the mobility of stone. He becomes a Svengali wringing awesome tones from the world's most majestic musical instrument. Then, in swift transition to a lighter vein, he flashes an unexpectedly disarming smile. It wilts women and makes men nervous.
At least that's what I've been told by women who watch him on television and bitterly complain whenever he periodically disappears.
For several years, off and on, Korla has been northern California's most talked about television personality. Once, following his temporary departure from a San Francisco station, TV Guide ran a popularity poll and Korla won it six months after he was off the air.
In this album you can't see the eyes that hypnotize but you will hear music surpassing his best efforts on television. There, he worked with a small electric organ. Here, he plays a mighty pipe organ at the Whitney Studio in Glendale.
It is an enormous instrument with three big lofts that spread out like a symphony orchestra. It has a piano built into the keyboard. It is equipped with marimbas, drums, bells, cymbals and dozens of complex sound devices all available to and used by Korla as he plays music of the tropical islands.
Sometimes it seems Korla is accompanied by a score of musicians, but he works alone. He is a one-man band with organic overtones. His nim- bly racing fingers produce sounds forgotten since the long ago years of silent movies when big theaters used big pipe organs to entertain patrons between pictures.
Perhaps that's why the older generation particularly enjoys Korla's music. Perhaps it recalls with fond memories their glamorous yesteryears.
But Korla is a much finer musician than the average organist who made music in the motion picture theaters. He is an orchestral minded organist. He approaches his work as does a conductor, or an arranger, particularly in this album.
In his first, "Korla Pandit at the Pipe Organ," he played comparatively simple arrangements of popular tunes. In his second, "Music of the Exotic East," he went "farther out," as they say in jazz circles. In this album, he is "real gone"-as far gone as you can go on a pipe organ, that is.
The result is something to savor because it best expresses what Korla has been striving for all along.
By way of background, you should know that Korla is a student of philosophy, a seeker after truth, a preacher of universal brotherhood. He firmly believes that music is the universal language of man. He is dedicated to authentically recreating the music of all climes and climates for the ears of our civilization.
He was born in India, educated in London. Later, he attended the University of Chicago and while there he first went on radio as an organist. Subsequently, in Hollywood, he created the radio mood music for "Chandu the Magician" and became the first musician to have his own television show.
Korla won audience applause and numerous awards but he hungered for the luxury of solitude, for a place to quietly reflect, pursue his studies and compose his own music. With his wife, Beryl, and his young sons, Sari and Karam, he found a retreat in the heart of the Santa Cruz redwood country where towering, 4,000 year old sequoia sempervirens are nature's oldest living links with antiquity.
There he retired and from there he occasionally emerged to do a television series and receive favorable reviews including this description of his music written by yours truly in a rare burst of unabashed enthusiasm: "exotic, mystic, moody, hypnotic-as gentle as drifting lotus blossoms, as savage as jungle drums."
These elements are recaptured in this album as it reflects the moods and mysteries of the South Seas and the East Indies, of Bali, Hawaii, Haiti, Tahiti and other faraway tropical islands. It includes Korla Pandit versions of popular themes, "Taboo," "Moon of Manakoora," "The Breeze and I," even a swingy treatment of "Lovely Hula Hands." It embraces themes created by Korla.
All of it is image music-designed to stimulate the imaginative mind with mental pictures of trumpeting elephants, slave girls, richly robed caliphs, savage jungle natives, sarong-sheathed dancing girls, sacrificial fire ceremonies, voodoo torture dances, pompous processions.
Here you will hear the tropical sounds-the growl of erupting volcanos, the crack of quaking earth, the murmur of coastal breezes, the swaying of palms, the roar of the surf-all subtly woven into island rhythms.
The album seethes with the imagery of demons and devils, priests at prayer, rites of old, things mysterious, things exotic, things exciting. Drums thud amidst the pealing of bells and the crashing of cymbals.
It is music to read by, romance by or daydream by. It is music to travel with on flights of fancy. It is about as far from current popular "commercial" music as an album can get. – DWIGHT NEWTON
At least that's what I've been told by women who watch him on television and bitterly complain whenever he periodically disappears.
For several years, off and on, Korla has been northern California's most talked about television personality. Once, following his temporary departure from a San Francisco station, TV Guide ran a popularity poll and Korla won it six months after he was off the air.
In this album you can't see the eyes that hypnotize but you will hear music surpassing his best efforts on television. There, he worked with a small electric organ. Here, he plays a mighty pipe organ at the Whitney Studio in Glendale.
It is an enormous instrument with three big lofts that spread out like a symphony orchestra. It has a piano built into the keyboard. It is equipped with marimbas, drums, bells, cymbals and dozens of complex sound devices all available to and used by Korla as he plays music of the tropical islands.
Sometimes it seems Korla is accompanied by a score of musicians, but he works alone. He is a one-man band with organic overtones. His nim- bly racing fingers produce sounds forgotten since the long ago years of silent movies when big theaters used big pipe organs to entertain patrons between pictures.
Perhaps that's why the older generation particularly enjoys Korla's music. Perhaps it recalls with fond memories their glamorous yesteryears.
But Korla is a much finer musician than the average organist who made music in the motion picture theaters. He is an orchestral minded organist. He approaches his work as does a conductor, or an arranger, particularly in this album.
In his first, "Korla Pandit at the Pipe Organ," he played comparatively simple arrangements of popular tunes. In his second, "Music of the Exotic East," he went "farther out," as they say in jazz circles. In this album, he is "real gone"-as far gone as you can go on a pipe organ, that is.
The result is something to savor because it best expresses what Korla has been striving for all along.
By way of background, you should know that Korla is a student of philosophy, a seeker after truth, a preacher of universal brotherhood. He firmly believes that music is the universal language of man. He is dedicated to authentically recreating the music of all climes and climates for the ears of our civilization.
He was born in India, educated in London. Later, he attended the University of Chicago and while there he first went on radio as an organist. Subsequently, in Hollywood, he created the radio mood music for "Chandu the Magician" and became the first musician to have his own television show.
Korla won audience applause and numerous awards but he hungered for the luxury of solitude, for a place to quietly reflect, pursue his studies and compose his own music. With his wife, Beryl, and his young sons, Sari and Karam, he found a retreat in the heart of the Santa Cruz redwood country where towering, 4,000 year old sequoia sempervirens are nature's oldest living links with antiquity.
There he retired and from there he occasionally emerged to do a television series and receive favorable reviews including this description of his music written by yours truly in a rare burst of unabashed enthusiasm: "exotic, mystic, moody, hypnotic-as gentle as drifting lotus blossoms, as savage as jungle drums."
These elements are recaptured in this album as it reflects the moods and mysteries of the South Seas and the East Indies, of Bali, Hawaii, Haiti, Tahiti and other faraway tropical islands. It includes Korla Pandit versions of popular themes, "Taboo," "Moon of Manakoora," "The Breeze and I," even a swingy treatment of "Lovely Hula Hands." It embraces themes created by Korla.
All of it is image music-designed to stimulate the imaginative mind with mental pictures of trumpeting elephants, slave girls, richly robed caliphs, savage jungle natives, sarong-sheathed dancing girls, sacrificial fire ceremonies, voodoo torture dances, pompous processions.
Here you will hear the tropical sounds-the growl of erupting volcanos, the crack of quaking earth, the murmur of coastal breezes, the swaying of palms, the roar of the surf-all subtly woven into island rhythms.
The album seethes with the imagery of demons and devils, priests at prayer, rites of old, things mysterious, things exotic, things exciting. Drums thud amidst the pealing of bells and the crashing of cymbals.
It is music to read by, romance by or daydream by. It is music to travel with on flights of fancy. It is about as far from current popular "commercial" music as an album can get. – DWIGHT NEWTON
About Korla Pandit
The professional career of Korla Pandit has been a suc- cession of impressive "firsts" in concert and television presentations, nationally as well as locally, in Hollywood and New York. He is responsible for several innovations in organ construction and intepretation, including Indian drum and percussive effects previously untried. His greatest success has been in television (Mr. Pandit gave the first all-musical TV program in Hollywood in 1949), and his one-hour weekly show in California won countless admirers and many awards. He has performed, too, in churches and temples on numerous occasions.
"Music may not save your soul, but it will
Cause your soul to be worth saving."
Moon Of Manikoora
Strange Enchantment
Poinciana
Tango In D
The Breeze And I
Blue Moon
Lovely Hula Hands
Trade Winds
Tabu
Yes! I have this one! I love it!
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