Ravi Shankar passes.

Indian classical music is great stuff, and Ravi Shankar opened the door (for me anyway) not only to other sitar musicians (Vlayt Khan is very good also) but also to Iranian, Chinese, and other international music. A lot of it reminds me of meditation or prayer, with vocal improvisation as well as a huge variety of non-western instruments. But Ravi certainly deserves a lot of credit for exposing Indian Music to young people as well as classcially trained masters such as Yehudi Medhuin (sp?). Funny too how good the sitar sounds once you've heard it played a few times.