{"id":43212,"date":"2015-10-13T20:21:50","date_gmt":"2015-10-13T20:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=43212"},"modified":"2015-10-13T20:26:31","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T20:26:31","slug":"exotic-korla-pandit-hid-race-under-swami-persona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=43212","title":{"rendered":"Exotic Korla Pandit hid race under swami persona"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exotic Korla Pandit hid race under swami persona<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

SFGate<\/a>
\n2015-08-15<\/p>\n

Jessica Zack<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Eric Christensen<\/a> grew up in San Francisco<\/a> in the 1950s and remembers his mother, \u201clike a lot of women then, being transfixed by Korla Pandit<\/a> on television. He wore a jeweled turban and had these mesmerizing eyes that made women feel he could see right through them. Korla was this otherworldly, captivating guy, and we all thought he and his music were from another land.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christensen, who lives in Mill Valley<\/a>, and his former KGO TV colleague John Turner<\/a> of Berkeley<\/a> have chronicled Pandit\u2019s life story in their new documentary \u201cKorla<\/a>,\u201d which has its Bay Area<\/a> premiere at San Francisco\u2019s Museum of the African Diaspora<\/a> on Aug. 20.<\/p>\n

From his first 1949 episodes of \u201cAdventures in Music\u201d on Southern California\u2019s KTLA<\/a>, Pandit rode an almost 50-year-long wave of success \u2014 as a TV sensation, prolific recording artist (13 albums with Berkeley\u2019s Fantasy Records) and \u201cgrandfather of exotica music<\/a>\u201d \u2014 based not only on his keyboard prowess but on his enigmatic swami persona.<\/p>\n

With his heavily kohl<\/a>-rimmed eyes and upturned half-smile, Pandit coaxed unusual sounds from the Hammond B-3 organ<\/a>, playing \u201cmusical gems from far and near\u201d \u2014 faux-Polynesian sounds, Hawaiian war chants, \u201chypnotiques\u201d \u2014 while extolling the virtues of \u201cdivine consciousness\u201d and \u201cthe universal language of music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, unbeknownst to his legions of fans until after his death in Petaluma<\/a> in 1998, at age 77, Pandit\u2019s hypnotic Svengali<\/a> look and supposedly Hindu name were part of an expertly crafted fiction of self-invention. A magazine profile by R. J. Smith in 2001<\/a> revealed that Pandit was actually African American, a minister\u2019s son born John Roland Redd<\/a>, from Columbia, Mo<\/a>…<\/p>\n

…The film incorporates interviews with music and sociology experts \u2014 including Carlos Santana<\/a> (who likens Pandit to Miles Davis<\/a>), The Chronicle\u2019s Radio Waves<\/em> columnist Ben Fong-Torres<\/a> and UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus Harry Edwards<\/a> \u2014 as well as with Pandit\u2019s nephew Gary Cloud, to examine, says Christensen, \u201cthis amazing act, even by show business standards. This wasn\u2019t an act that occurred onstage for an hour or two, this was 24\/7, all through his life. Korla put on this persona and couldn\u2019t take it off. Living a lie on a daily basis must have been very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKorla\u2019s life story illustrates what African Americans knew at the time: \u2018If I can be anything other than black, my life could change dramatically,\u2019\u201d says Stanford University Assistant Professor of History Allyson Hobbs<\/a>, whose new book \u201cA Chosen Exile<\/a>\u201d explores the stories of individuals who passed as someone else racially<\/a> from the late 19th century through the 1950s. \u201cIf they could just twist people\u2019s perception of them even one degree \u2014 in this case, from black to another minority \u2014 doors previously closed would open.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exotic Korla Pandit hid race under swami persona SFGate 2015-08-15 Jessica Zack Eric Christensen grew up in San Francisco in the 1950s and remembers his mother, \u201clike a lot of women then, being transfixed by Korla Pandit on television. He wore a jeweled turban and had these mesmerizing eyes that made women feel he could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,8,6462,20],"tags":[9812,21401,21402,21168,21403,9250,21399,21152,21089,21167,21088,1392,21400,21398],"class_list":["post-43212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-allyson-hobbs","tag-ben-fong-torres","tag-carlos-santana","tag-eric-christensen","tag-gary-cloud","tag-harry-edwards","tag-jessica-zack","tag-john-redd","tag-john-roland-redd","tag-john-turner","tag-korla-pandit","tag-music","tag-r-j-smith","tag-sfgate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43212"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43214,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43212\/revisions\/43214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}