A while back, in response to what I perceived as heinous omissions from a well-known book, I began compiling a list of “101 More Albums You Must Hear Before You Die”. I thought this addendum could provide a focus for occasional Vinyl Connection posts. Sadly, the project stalled, largely because I couldn’t get the list under a further three hundred essential albums.
If, however, the idea gets picked up again (and it might) there is one 1968 release that is an absolute certainty for inclusion.
Rishikesh, northern India, was the site of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram, visited by The Beatles and assorted friends and acquaintances in February 1968. Stories and songs arising from that visit are plentiful and if we tackle The Beatles (aka The White Album) at some point, perhaps we’ll delve into some of those. But for now our focus is an attendee who certainly would not have caught the attention of teen pop magazines at the time.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and friends (Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
When he visited the Maharishi’s ashram, Paul Horn was already a twelve year veteran of the West Coast jazz scene, yet clearly he hankered for more.
His studies in Transcendental Meditation and travels on the sub-continent had a profound influence on the flautist: a deep curiosity about spiritual places took him back to India several times. As Paul writes in the pasted-in liner notes to the original Epic release, the beauty of the Taj Mahal exerts a powerfully reverential force. The musician convinced the guard/attendant (yes, just the one was necessary in 1968) that his desire to play in that hallowed place was a spiritual communion between human and edifice.
And what an edifice. The Taj Mahal sits on the bank of the Yamuna River near the city of Agra, not far from the border with Nepal. As the liner notes by the wonderfully named Kip Kipnis tell us, it was built by the Mogul Emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial to his wife, Arjumand Banu Begum, who died in 1631. Drawing architects and specialist masons from all over India and beyond, the Shah wanted the best, and was willing to open his Treasury to achieve the result he desired.
“Pure white marble for the walls came from Jaipur, to be inlayed with a flowering, flowing pattern of vines in twenty different kinds of precious and semi-precious jewels: jasper from Punjab; jade from China; turquoise from Tibet; lapis from Lazuli, and sapphires from Ceylon; coral and carnelian from Arabia; onyx and amethyst from Persia; and diamonds from Panna in Bundelkund”
An army of twenty thousand workers laboured for well over two decades to create one of the wonders of the world. When Paul Horn takes over the story, his wonderment is clearly evident.
“The majesty of the place staggers the imagination and the hushed atmosphere throughout the grounds makes the soul begin to glow deep within.”
An attendant would explain to visitors the history of the place and its extraordinary decoration… and demonstrate the acoustics by singing a musical phrase into the dome. This marble structure, “60 feet in diameter and 80 feet high” has amazing resonance; the American musician was entranced.
“Each tone hung suspended in space for 28 seconds and the acoustics are so perfect that you couldn’t tell when his voice stopped ad the echo took over.”
Horn took out his flute and played a few phrases.
Magic.
But they had to leave.
A month later, another opportunity arose to visit the mausoleum and this time, after some uncertain preliminaries, Horn and his sound recordist were allowed to play.
The sound is quite unlike anything you’ve ever heard, not so much a tune as an emanation of notes into space where they soar and bank and dip like ecstatic spirits. Horn skilfully layers the phrases, using the echo as a natural multi-track; the pure tones of the gold flute expand into the dome and enlarge the heart of the listener. If ever there was a record for listening with just a single candle for company, this is it.
All of this would be plenty to delight the armchair traveller, yet there is more. What makes this album extraordinary is the inclusion of some of the attendant’s “calls”. There is even a call-and-response collaboration between human voice and flute. It is the presence of this voice—true, impassioned, yet reverent—that lifts Inside into a realm that could almost be described as sublime. The Indian man’s singing grounds the music in a way that no other instrument could; hearing heavenly sounds we are also gently called back to earth. It is a remarkable recording.
A later re-issue that replaces the artists face with the location. There is also a CD that includes the sequel album Inside II
Inside is considered one of the best New Age albums of all time, which is interesting given that it was released many years before that term was even coined. In 1968 its’ multi-cultural flavour and new sounds certainly marked it out as ‘progressive’. It is one of the first Western records to include Indian sounds created in India (rather than buying a sitar in London and adding some Eastern touches to your Western album, for instance).
But most of all, Inside is a record of timeless beauty. Definitely worth hearing before you die.
vinylconnection.com.au 
I did the insensitive thing and routed this from Agra to the Lounge Stereo via Bluetooth and YouTube, WiFi and NBN. I then sat in the Dining room next door to eat Dinner. Amazingly, all that meddling seemingly added a draft of wistfulness and even some beauty to the Listening experience; an undeserved priveledge for a detached observer.
Thanks
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I guess that ability to be either background or foreground is one characteristic of better New Age music. Anyway, if there can be a call to prayer, I don’t see why there cannot be a call to dinner.
Glad you enjoyed the meal, DD.
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I’m familiar with this book of which you speak!
I’m intrigued by this as I’ve read many tales from the 1968 India visit but I didn’t recognize Paul Horn.
And I’d be very keen to see this list of omissions too, I’m impressed you narrowed it down to 300, 100 may be near impossible. Almost as impossible as reviewing the white album, I’m saving that for review #1001 and hoping to have something coherent to say by that point!
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Here is a link to the review I wrote for Discrepancy, Geoff. Five hundred words didn’t seem a lot to play with, especially considering I was including the 2 LP Escher Demos as well!
https://www.discrepancy-records.com.au/blog/our-blog/white-and-bright/
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Exceptional work Bruce – and I agree, while the exercise of condensing it to a single may be diverting, it’s nonsense. It’s meant to be a glorious sprawling adventure – and if it sprawls onto 4 LPs, even better!
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Given your love if this one, Geoff. I imagine you will spring for the version with the Esher Demos at some point? The CD set is pretty good value, I reckon. Only absurd vinyl suckers need the box. 🙂
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And with albums like this (to add to your list of record buyer justifications), it’s not really spending $, it’s an investment!
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Holy mackerel. How did I not know this existed? I need to hear this NOW! 😉
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You do, Aaron. Enlightenment guaranteed!
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Haha enlightenment guaranteed… I’ve read enough to know that’s selling something! 😉
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How interesting. I had never heard of Mr Horn at all.
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It’s a huge catalogue Joe. Lots of jazz and then, having accidentally invent New Age, lots of pretty flute music. But nothing quite like this, not even the album recorded inside the Great Pyramid.
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We’ve all recorded one of those, surely?
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I recorded a euphonium album in a cardboard pyramid of my own devising but the sides kept blowing down when I huffed and puffed.
Seriously though folks, “Inside” is worth a listen.
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Another new name for me, Bruce. I did a little bit of reading and was interested to learn that, when the album was released, he was very unhappy that his face, not the Taj, was on the cover. Looks like he had his way with the re-release! (Love the colorful Kuckuck label on the latter…)
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Oh, that’s good to hear. Thanks JDB. I never really liked the front cover. That poor photo at the end of the piece, with Paul sitting cross-legged on the floor, would have been preferable. But as you say, the re-issue was a vast improvement.
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I have that ‘Inside’ album. Do you believe me?
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You, Mr CB, are an eclectic music lover, so why not? Do you enjoy it as much as this VC chap?
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Yes I do. When I was a teen I had a friend who had a very good sound system. He turned me onto all sorts of cool music (Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, etc ). This was one of those albums. Paul was from my neck of the woods.
My buddy was stretching CB’s blues rock, hillbilly head.
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I am now intrigued, the album inside the pyramid suffers from too many embellishments, or maybe the embellishments make up for well enough of that. I will hear this though.
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Yup – got me intrigued with this one, Bruce. Looking over the Mr Horn albums available on Spotify when I searched for this one I’m quite dazzled by the selection. I’m particularly drawn to Tibet, too…
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To be honest, I haven’t followed Mr Horn’s career all that closely. Though Tibet does sound enticing…
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I played Inside for a bit before heading to my kip. Very nice. Got it lined up for some further listening. My wife approved, too.
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Great. It’s a unique and beautiful album.
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No kidding. Really very moving stuff… and calming.
(By the way, I’m catching up with your posts after a bit of time away!)
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Fantastic album – Still listen to it quite often, not to mention that I have used it in sessions with small children in a kinder-garden where they should give each other massage, they also like it !
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That’s lovely!
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Not too big into New Age music, but this definitely sounds interesting- will have to give a listen!
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It is fascinating (as is the related Pyramid LP). I guess the music appeared before the genre label!
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68? Yeah that’s quite early. Not my area of expertise, but the genre didn’t breakthrough into the mainstream wasn’t till the 80’s, right?
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Spot on. There is a fascinating current of ‘composed’ Minimalism from the mid-to-late 60s* that Eno tapped into for his Ambient music explorations. Then there was the electronic movement that ‘prettied up’ the sound with 80s synthesisers that yoga teachers and remedial massage therapists latched onto. And THEN there was a kind of offshoot with the electro-acoustic music epitomised by the Windham Hill label…
Bet you’re glad you asked, eh? 🤣
* At VC I posted on one of the key albums that is def worth a listen, I’ll drop a link back here.
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Here’s the piece on Terry Riley’s Rainbow in Curved Air. I’m not that keen on the actual post – it’s a bit wanky – but the music is great!
Cheers
– Bruce
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Thanks! Gonna find the music and read along with tonight hopefully!
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[…] Paul Horn has appeared in these pages previously, hanging out inside the Taj Mahal. This fusion of Renaissance, jazz, rock, and psychedelic music has to be at least as […]
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