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REVIEWS
For several years off and on Korla has been Northern
California's most talked about television personality. Once,
following his temporary departure from a San Francisco Station, TV Guide ran
a popularity poll and Korla won it six months after he was off the air.
- Dwight Newton, Columnist, San
Francisco, CA
(1960)
Any attempt for the writer or critic to apply the commonplace language of
musical comment to the work of Korla Pandit must inevitably end in hapless
frustration. For the music of Korla Pandit is as defiant of ordinary
processes of analysis as is the nature of Korla Pandit himself. That this is
no ordinary man and this is no ordinary music is blazingly evident that first
electric moment his music surges over the listener. The stultifying
self-consciousness that manacles the performance of lesser artists is
completely lacking here. In its stead is an unchained torrent of pure
emotion…sometimes gay, bright laughing; sometimes wistful, piquant, tender;
sometimes wild, sensual, almost abandoned….but always expressing unmistakably
the innermost feelings of the man…Korla Pandit.
- Michael Robbins, Sausalito,
CA (1961)
…Should make a big hit with the femmes…A relaxing program built around Pandit
at the organ…Pandit himself is an extremely handsome, sensitive looking
chap..listenable organ music…intriguing…imaginative…high quality…
- Milton Luban, The Hollywood Reporter (9/2/1954)
Korla Pandit…was as exotic visually as he was musically. And his showmanship
was undeniable. As a result, he was probably exotica's single most
influential player…millions of people heard Pandit daily through the mid
fifties…it is difficult to calculate the influence of Korla Pandit on the
young musicians who saw that show…the mystique is still intact, as is his
charisma…Korla Pandit is magic. For nearly five decades, Korla Pandit has
given us music that has fueled our imaginations.
- Skip Heller, Musicologist (4/1996)
Korla Pandit was a musician of dazzling inventiveness and dexterity. Long
before synthesizers stalked the land, Korla figured out how to coax all
manner of previously unheard percussion, brass and string sounds out of the
Hammond B-3 organ; on record and in concert, he often sounded like several
musicians performing simultaneously. He was also one of L.A.'s first TV
stars; his 1950s show on KTLA, which featured a turbaned Korla staring
penetratingly into the camera while playing hypnotic originals like
"Tales of the Underwater Worshippers," was a huge favorite with
area housewives…Like Kelbo's, Tiny Naylor's and the Brown Derby, Korla Pandit
was a vestige of an older, cooler L.A. that has drifted into the sunset. May
his music - and his message of universal love - live on forever.
- Dan Epstein, L.A. WEEKLY
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