( CNN ) -- `` Beauty '' seemed somehow insufficient a description for the sounds that came from Ravi Shankar 's sitar in a concert hall . It was as if nature itself were being replicated on the stage , whether it was gentle summer rain or late-autumn wind having its way with the landscape . There would be intense engagement between Shankar and his ensemble as they summoned into being tempests of interlocking phrases that seemed to coil and unravel at will . The audience would be enraptured , transported , energized into enthusiastic applause . And this was before the actual performance started . `` If you enjoyed the tuning up that much , I hope you enjoy the music even more , '' Shankar can be heard saying on the recording of the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh addressing the appreciative , if nonplussed crowd at Madison Square Garden . It was n't the first , or last time he gently ( at times , not so gently ) reproved audiences who , even with the benefit of his warnings , took the preliminaries for the actual recitals . Some learned , some never did -- and then there were those who really did enjoy the tuning-up as much as what followed . Whatever his audience 's reaction , Shankar , who died Tuesday at age 92 after undergoing heart surgery , seemed to accept it all with benign imperiousness and regal warmth . As emissary for a classical tradition of Indian music , Shankar was winning over global audiences for that music in greater numbers than could have been imagined when he started learning the music of raga almost 70 years ago . He was already close to legendary stature in India by the 1950s as sitar virtuoso , composer , conductor and director of All India Radio in New Delhi . He had also written scores for several Indian films , notably Satyajit Ray 's `` Apu Trilogy '' ( 1955-1959 ) whose international acclaim was a huge factor in increasing Shankar 's worldwide profile . By the late 1950s , Shankar was making cross-genre connections with the likes of violinist Yehudi Menuhin and jazz saxophonist John Coltrane , whose seminal 1961 recording of `` My Favorite Things '' was infused with modal inventions that carried the incantatory fervor of classic raga music . ( Coltrane would name his son Ravi after Shankar . This year , by the way , Ravi Coltrane , who like his father plays tenor and soprano saxophone , released his finest album to date , `` Spirit Fiction '' on Blue Note Records . ) As all this indicates , Shankar was already well-known before the Beatles got involved . In fact , they were n't even the first rock group to get hip to Shankar . That honor belonged to the Byrds , who recorded in the same World Pacific Records studios as Shankar did for producer Richard Bock . They in turn got George Harrison hooked on raga and Harrison began plucking the sitar on his own . ( Dial up `` Norwegian Wood '' from the Beatles ' 1965 album `` Rubber Soul '' and you 'll hear that instrument poking out the theme . ) Harrison and Shankar met the next year and the `` quiet Beatle '' went to India to study sitar with the master . Back then , whatever the Beatles were interested in , the rest of the world was interested in , too . Brian Jones picked up the sitar on the Rolling Stones ' 1966 hit `` Paint It Black '' and the Byrds appropriated a sitar-sound ( and a Coltrane riff ) that same year for `` Eight Miles High . '' `` Raga-rock '' lasted just long enough to make the sitar part of the shorthand soundtrack of what 's often derisively labeled `` the hippie era . '' Shankar was at best ambivalent about such associations . But his reputation , as with his music , transcended fashion to become its own singular , lasting presence in the world 's cultural firmament . Anyone who can make a sound check sound like genius packs substantial weight with the rest of the immortals . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Gene Seymour .
Ravi Shankar : Gene Seymour brought classical Shankar music to a global audience . He says he was legendary in India when he made cross-genre connections . The the Rolling Stones ' hip to India before Beatles , but sitar could soon be heard on their records . Seymour : His sound transcended pop associations to carve out singular spot in music .