L. Shankar
L. Shankar ( Lakshminarayana Shankar ; born April 26, 1950 in Madras ), also Shankar or Shenkar , is an Indian violinist and composer.
Life
Shankar grew up in Ceylon , where his father, V. Lakshminarayana , a violinist and singer trained in classical South Indian music , taught at the Jaffna Music College . He learned to play the violin and first performed in public in a Ceylonese temple at the age of seven.
After accompanying various Indian singers for several years, he founded a trio with his brothers L. Vaidyanathan and L. Subramaniam that performed throughout India. In 1969 he went to the USA, where he studied ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University .
There he met jazz musicians like Ornette Coleman , Jimmy Garrison and John McLaughlin . With McLaughlin, he founded the group Shakti in 1975 , one of the early groups in which Eastern and Western musical traditions met. Three albums of fundamental importance were created: Shakti (1975), Handful of Beauty (1976) and Natural Elements (1977).
After the band broke up, he was a violinist with Frank Zappa for a short time and then founded the group The Epidemics and released a number of albums as a band leader. With Peter Gabriel he wrote the soundtrack for the film The Last Temptation of Christ (1989), for which he received a Grammy . In the following years he worked on several of Gabriel's albums. Since 1996 he has been working with the violinist Gingger as the Duo Shankar & Gingger .
Shankar has also performed with Elton John , Eric Clapton , Phil Collins , Bruce Springsteen , Van Morrison , Yoko Ono , Stewart Copeland , John Waite , Steve Vai , Ginger Baker , Nils Lofgren , Sting and Peter Gabriel .
Discography
- 1979: Touch Me There with Vicky Blumenthal, Jack Emblow, Stucco Homes , James Lascelles, Jenny Lautrec, Dave Marquee, Phil Palmer , Simon Phillips , Frank Zappa
- 1980: Who's to Know with Zakir Hussain , Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman, V. Lakshminarayana
- 1983: Vision with Jan Garbarek , Palle Mikkelborg
- 1984: Song for Everyone with Jan Garbarek, Trilok Gurtu , Zakir Hussain
- 1986: Epidemics with Caroline Shankar, Percy Jones , Gilbert Kaufman, Steve Vai
- 1987: Two Musical Traditions of India
- 1989: Pancha Nadai Pallavi with Caroline Shankar, Zakir Hussain, TH Vinayakram
- 1989: MRCS with Jon Christensen , Zakir Hussain, TH Vinayakram
- 1990: Nobody Told Me with Zakir Hussain, V. Lakshminarayana, Ganam Rao, Caroline Shankar, TH Vinayakram
- 1990: Soul Searcher with Caroline Shankar, Peter Gabriel , Zakir Hussain, Ganam Rao, TH Vinayakram
- 1995: Raga Aberi with Caroline Shankar, Zakir Hussain, TH Vinayakram
- 2000: Eternal Light with Zakir Hussain, TH Vinayakram
- 2004: Celestial Body with Guy Allison, Neil Citron, Gingger
- 2018: Black Labyrinth with Jonathan Davis
Web links
- L. Shankar at Discogs (English)
- L. Shankar in the Internet Movie Database (English)
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Shankar, L. |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Shankar, Lakshminarayana (full name); Shenkar, Shankar |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Indian violinist and composer |
DATE OF BIRTH | April 26, 1950 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Madras , India |