„Late in the first half of Ravi Shankar‘s first New York recital on a 2 February 1957 at Town Hall, Dick Bock fell asleep. Shankar‘s brilliance that evening inspired critics to compare him to Western critical masters and jazz greats, but Indian‘s music immense impact on the West can be traced directly back to Bock‘s doze.

Richard Bock was an early iteration of the West Coast hipster, a hash-smoking bebop buff who had started the Pacific Jazz label a few years earlier to record Gerry Mulligan‘s new quartet with Chet Baker. He was in New York that week, to meet George Avakian, the head of jazz at Columbia Records, hoping to talk him into becoming a partner; together, Bock felt, they could dominate the expanding jazz market. When Avakian went to check out the sitar master Yehudi Menuhin was raving about, Bock tagged along.

With about a third of the seats filled, the concert was a commercial flop, but the audience was enthusiastic and Avakian so intrigued by the parallels to jazz that he offered Shankar a deal to make an album for Columbia. [that was 15 years ahead of me, buying a Ravi Shankar album appeared on the Beatles’ Apple Record label; Anm. v. Michael Engelbrecht, see cover photo] It was Bock, though, who would be the key to Ravi‘s international future. Had he dropped out of boredom? Not at all; Indian music, he explained, „put the listener ina relaxed mood and calm state of mind, which carries him into an area of serenity“. Bock may have then lacked the sixties vocabulary, but he responded as millions would a decade later; he had „tripped out“ on Indian classical music.“

[Any doubts about tripping out? Then listen, and be one of the millions, HERE!] This is the beginning of chapter 4 (pages 282 – 382) and what you‘ve read by now is close to 1/900 of Joe Boyd‘s „And The Rhythm Will Remain – a journey through global music. And as all chapter work independantly from one another, we choose chapter 4 as the content of our fabulous next parallel reading adventure.

Who apart from Brian W. , Michael E. and Olaf W. (just agreed!) will join the reading crew…. those who join the circle will, amongst else, see what the music of Ricardo Baliardo and a Romafest in Paris have to do with Bob Dylan‘s „One more cup of coffee“… but, then again, who needs an appetizer for a book written by the man who gave „White Bicycles“ to the world?

The parallel reading takes place between November 2 and November 23. Four weeks. Every participant has to answer four questions every week (as short or as long as he or she wants them to be). The questions are always the same, and the hundred pages will be read in, well, 4 parts.

1. What did really take you by surprise! (Name one, two, or three „wow“-factors!)
2. How do you experience to listen to an album you can choose freely from the pages you‘ve been reading?
3. What is an interesting connection you haven‘t been conscious about before?
4. How do you respond to Joe Boyd‘s writing (content / style, whatever)?