Raga Darbari is one of the most popular night ragas of Hindustani Classical Music. And every major musician has had a go at it. Of all these Darbari-s, I personally find Ustad Amir Khan's to be the tops, perhaps because I first heard Raga Darbari is his voice.

Amir Khan is classed with Bade Ghulam Ali Khan in the pantheon of great Hindustani musicians. His singing, unlike those wildly gesticulating ustads and pandits of various gharanas, caricatured on MTV India, is stately and grandoise. Also listen to Aaj More Ghar Aaye Na Balmaa in Raga Malkauns, another night raga.

So this morning to clear my blood of the previous night's howling, I am listening to Mickey Hart's Smithsonian Radio, in which he brings a mesh of rythms for all over the world - currently it is Grupo de Capoeira Angola Pelourinho from Bahia, Brazil. As I have bitched here previously, one major handicap of Western Classical Music, from the viewpoint of my ears, is that it lacks a strong ryhtm section with some exceptions such as Ravel's "Bolero". Have rythmic day, y'all.

The heart is a restless beast tonight, much like a ravenous lion in the Roman circuses, and I am attempting to tame it with morsels of sound from that close cousin of Hindustani Classical music, Persian classical music. This is the music I am listening to.

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Later, I discovered that MusicIndiaOnline (which I think, hands down, is the best Indian music site!) has the very beautiful album "Rain" by Ghazal, the Indo-Persian duo comprised of Iranian kamancheh (spike fiddle) player Kayhan Kalhor and Indian sitarist Shujaat Husain Khan. You may be interested in the liner notes from an earlier Ghazal's album for a quick rundown on these two musicial traditions.