7 The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time 7

Beginning in the 1960s, his concert performances with
the American violinist Yehudi Menuhin and his association
with George Harrison, lead guitarist of the then wildly
popular British musical group the Beatles, helped bring
Indian music to the attention of the West. Shankar won
Grammy Awards in 1967 for his album East Meets West,
with Menuhin; in 1972 for The Concert for Bangladesh, with
Harrison; and in 2002 for Full Circle, a live recording of a
performance at Carnegie Hall with his daughter Anoushka
Shankar (born 1981).
Especially remarkable among Shankar’s accomplish-
ments is his equally expert participation in traditional
Indian music and in Indian-influenced Western music.
Most characteristic of the latter activity are his concerti
for sitar and orchestra, particularly Raga Mala (“Garland
of Ragas”), first performed in 1981. In addition to his
strictly musical undertakings, Shankar wrote two auto-
biographies, published 30 years apart: My Life, My Music
(1969) and Raga Mala (1999). Shankar continued giving
concerts into his 80s, frequently accompanied by
Anoushka, who, like her father, specialized in blending
Indian and Western traditions. Also a daughter of Shankar
is multiple-Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Norah
Jones (born 1979), who found her niche in an eclectic blend
of jazz, pop, and country music.

Charlie Parker

(b. Aug. 29, 1920, Kansas City, Kan., U.S.—d. March 12, 1955, New
York, N.Y.)

A

merican alto saxophonist, composer, and bandleader,
Charlie Parker was the principal stimulus of the
modern jazz idiom known as bebop, and—together with
Louis Armstrong and Ornette Coleman—was one of the
great revolutionary geniuses in jazz.