" data-original-title="" title="">Ravi Shankar, for one, did not believe that ragas could be compared to jazz improvisation. Spontaneous creation in jazz differs from the complex rhythmic structural patterns of Indian improvisation. Shankar became the embodiment of non-western music in the 1960s. Jazz enthusiasts filled his audiences, quickly adapting techniques without any serious degree of due diligence. Nevertheless, his collaborations with jazz musicians laid the groundwork for Indo-Jazz.

Bohemian composer and, ethnomusicologist Walter Kaufmann dedicated twenty-five pages of his book The Ragas of North India (Indiana University Press, 1968) to defining the raga. Its meaning still isn't exactly set in stone other than to broadly describe the form as ..."a musical entity that includes note intonation, relative duration and order, in a manner similar to how words flexibly form phrases to create an atmosphere of expression." Raga, in Sanskrit, means "color." Also spelled "rag" (in northern India) or "ragam" (in southern India), it is the classical music of India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, a melodic framework for improvisation and composition. The music of the sub-continent is likely to have originated, like the sitar, in the Persian world.

Raga improvisation is rule-based: the specific notes are pre-determined, as is their order—the transition from one note to another. Microtones are often a feature of these compositions as they differentiate similar ascending and descending notes. "Sargam" is improvisation that consists of singing notes rather than words, again, with restrictions. Hypothetically, there are potentially thousands of ragas possible but in real-world use, the classical Indian tradition relies on several hundred. Some ragas are considered completely "improvised" but remain confined to guidelines, limitations that would not be present in even traditional jazz. This interpretation of improvisation is not unknown to Western music. Some 18th century classical music may have twenty movements, and the musicians could choose a half-dozen depending on the type of performance.

The jazz age came to Bombay in the mid-1930s as the effects of the Great Depression eased. Bombay was Mumbai under British rule from 1858 until the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947 but in the 1930s the busy port city was flexing a self-determining attitude. Western ideas, especially in the arts, were growing in popularity, including jazz. Leon Abbey (1900—1975) was an American jazz violinist and bandleader from Minnesota. In 1935 he toured Bombay with his eight-piece band and his foxtrot repertoire became an overnight sensation among the elite class in the city. A jazz network was established between Bombay, Shanghai and Paris-based African American musicians who established a "Harlem in Montmartre" conclave. That community fractured due to French quotas limiting non-citizen musicians but a number of the expatriates set up shop in Bombay and Calcutta.

It was Indian composers who initiated the merger of musical cultures, often under the umbrella of Hindi film music. Shankar Singh Raghuvanshi and Jaikishan Panchal were considered the greatest composers in Indian theater and cinema and their work spanned four decades. Both were fine musicians, influenced by Americanized jazz. Working with jazz veterans in Bombay, they adapted a dozen classical ragas with swing elements but these early experiments were rarely recorded.

The Birth of Indo-Jazz

The album Jazz Raga (Impulse!, 1966) was considered a cross-genre breakthrough in the West. But the album came by way of Hungarian guitarist/sitarist