{"id":1529,"date":"2010-07-01T10:39:47","date_gmt":"2010-07-01T14:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/?p=1529"},"modified":"2010-07-03T00:42:11","modified_gmt":"2010-07-03T04:42:11","slug":"antigravity-%e2%80%94-the-indian-group-1990-1991","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/antigravity-%e2%80%94-the-indian-group-1990-1991\/","title":{"rendered":"Antigravity \u2014 The Indian Group, 1990-1991"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Here are the pieces which make up the first Antigravity CD, released as “Antigravity \u2014 The Music of Warren Senders” (Accurate AC-4307), along with scans of the complete CD booklet & tray card. These were recorded at Ishwani Kendra Studios in Pune in 1990 and 1991.<\/p>\n

This has been out of print for years. I only have a few mint copies left.
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\nAuthors whose contributions appeared in the booklet were Steve Elman, Phil Scarff, Ajit Soman and me. I like to have stuff to read.<\/p>\n

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The first piece on the CD is “Welcome Home,” and it was also the first piece I wrote that year for this group. \u00a0 The title came about because we were so happy to be back in Pune again after a couple of strenuous years in the USA…as we landed in Pune airport both Vijaya and I were weeping a little. I love that city.<\/p>\n

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“Welcome Home”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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“Friends Everywhere” is still being performed, by Phil Scarff’s group Natraj. I occasionally get tiny checks from BMI as a consequence of their version getting airplay. The tune was composed when I mentally listed all my friends and I realized they were all over the world.<\/p>\n

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“Friends Everywhere”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Ajit Soman died earlier this year. His flute playing was a unique expression of a unique personality. Hearing him perform on “Ajit’s Dream” brings back a lot of memories; we had countless hours of long conversations, listened to huge amounts of music, and played, played, played. Everyone in Pune’s music community remembers Ajit with enormous affection.<\/p>\n

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“Ajit’s Dream”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Steve Elman wrote an extremely sympathetic and generous piece. <\/p>\n

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“Quarks” was one of our classic pieces from the days of the American ensemble. Check out the Cambridge band’s version of this piece here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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“Quarks”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Once I’d gotten started writing pieces for particular members of the group, the next candidate was Ramakant Paranjpe. He has always shone in his classical playing, so I decided to feature him performing three different ragas, hence the title.<\/p>\n

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“Three Ragas For Ramakant”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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One of Vijaya’s guitar teachers commented that she had an “articulate hand.” It’s very true; her picking has superlative rhythmic definition. The core lick of this piece was something I’d discovered years and years before, but had never developed.<\/p>\n

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“The Storysinger (Vijaya’s Story)”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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The last of the “concerti” for the players is this piece for Atul Keskar. I wanted to challenge his technique and conception, and he rose magnificently to the occasion.<\/p>\n

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“Where Is Atul?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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This piece is the “Antigravity National Anthem” (please sit down). The groove has been with me longer than any other; the American band played it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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“Life on Planet X”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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I wanted to do something very outside, and “Eponymous” pushed the players and the ensemble to their limits. It was very weird mixing this piece; the dilruba seemed very soft, but when we actually isolated its levels it was saturating the entire recording. I’ve never encountered anything like that before.<\/p>\n

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“Eponymous”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Phil and Ajit \u2014 two Antigravitoids from two different continents. I’m glad I had their combined perspectives on this page.<\/p>\n

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I actually left out a few people. I left out Fred Sokol, Betsy Pirtle, Jerylann Owens and Gordon Hahn.<\/p>\n

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The photograph of Ashish Manchanda is not actually of Ashish. He hadn’t sent me a picture by the time the material was to go to the printer, so I got a very grainy picture of another drummer, took it to “Stats for You” and requested them to render it unrecognizable. It was the only time they’d ever received such a request. Now it would have taken 20 seconds on Photoshop; back in the day it had to be done professionally, and cost about $80.
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And that’s the record. It still holds up pretty well, I think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here are the pieces which make up the first Antigravity CD, released as “Antigravity \u2014 The Music of Warren Senders” (Accurate AC-4307), along with scans of the complete CD booklet & tray card. These were recorded at Ishwani Kendra Studios in Pune in 1990 and 1991. This has been out of print for years. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,7,23,9,32],"tags":[547,69,551,548,552,546,549,550],"class_list":["post-1529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-india","category-indian-music","category-jazz","category-music","category-warrens-music","tag-ajit-soman","tag-antigravity","tag-ashish-manchanda","tag-atul-keskar","tag-indo-jazz","tag-ramakant-paranjpe","tag-sudhir-parkhi","tag-vijaya-sundaram"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1529"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1685,"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529\/revisions\/1685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}