White Men Can't Play Sitar?

Remember the movie “White Men Can’t Jump”? Well, I was asking myself that question but in terms of music. Do black people groove better than white folks? Can white musicians play sitar? OK, I never asked myself that question but when I heard Collin Walcott for the first time I already knew the answer. My first introduction to his music was through his solo album “Cloud Dance”. I found the LP in the archives of the Macedonian National Radio (where I work in the last 15 years) and immediately fall in love with his style. I already knew Indian music, I’ve listened to a lot of Ravi Shanmkar’s music in that period of my life, so I was pretty aware of what that instrument represents and what a true master could do with it. Collin Walcott was not a sitar virtuoso compared to Shankar or other native players, but his mastery of music in general is more than evident. He is the best white sitarist I know of! Walcott plays like a Westerner, he doesn't even try to imitate tradition (even though he took sitar and tabla lessons with Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha, respectively.) and is one of the few Western musicians to incorporate this type of instrument into an ensemble. He simply plays jazz on a non-standard instrument for that particular music genre. I love his tone, his space, and most of all - his imagination and creativity.

Collin Walcott was born in New York City, studied at the Yale School of Music, majored in percussion at Indiana University and later studied ethnomusicology at the University of California at Los Angeles. As a classical percussionist, he performed with the Toronto, Detroit and Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestras. After stints with Tony Scott (1967-69) and Tim Hardin, he became a member of the Paul Winter Consort in 1970. Walcott left the group with three other musicians (Ralph Towner, Paul McCandless and Glen Moore) in 1971 to form Oregon. In addition to recording and touring with Oregon, a unique folk/jazz group, Walcott recorded with Miles Davis in 1972 and was a member of Codona (a trio with Don Cherry and Nana Vasconcelos) that recorded for ECM. Tragically, Collin Walcott was killed in a traffic accident while on tour with Oregon in East Germany in 1984.