Ananda Shankar and His Music

Shankar recorded the follow-up in India, a jazz-funk mix of sitar, Western rock guitar, tabla and mridangam, drums and Moog synthesizers. The core group was Cyrus Tata, the only Western musician in it, with Somnath Banerjee on sarod, Ujjal Bhattacharjee on sitar and Souren Banerjee on tabla. Later the sitarist Indranil Bhattacharya, the vibraphonist Anto Menezes and the arranger YS Moolky were brought in. The group met at Shankar's home and jammed, and the album developed slowly through continuous conversation, Tata said. Each track had a working title, usually a musician's name, and Shankar kept one of them, Cyrus, for the finished record.

Real World Records said that on this album "it all fell into place", and named Streets of Calcutta and Dancing Drums as absolute classics. Both were on Blue Note's 1996 compilation Blue Juice Vol. 1. The album was out of print for many years and returned on CD in 2005. Alan James said that Shankar worked in rudimentary studios, but the sound he created was revolutionary.