AP Photo/Jae C. HongRavi Shankar's music was all about embracing life—and so was his funeral.
His musician daughters, Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar, wife Sukanya, jazz great Herbie Hancock, conductor Zubin Mehta and George Harrison's widow, Olivia, were among more than 1,000 people who turned out to pay tribute to the late sitar player Thurdsay in his adopted home of Encinitas, Calif.
Despite it being a crisp winter day, the sun fittingly shone on the 90-minute outdoor memorial service at the Self Realization Fellowship for the man Harrison called the "godfather of world music."
"My father loved spending time here so much and it feels so right for us to celebrate his journey in this beautiful place," Anoushka told the assembled mourners. Her husband, Anna Karenina and Atonement director Joe Wright, also spoke.
Jones, whose mother was concert producer Sue Jones, did not address the crowd but she did join half-sister Anoushka and other family members onstage upon the conclusion of the service.
"Ravi was one of the great citizens of the world," Olivia Harrison said in her eulogy, per the San Diego Union-Tribune. "I cannot think of a more illustrious or elegant person."
Her late husband and Shankar were "like father and son, as well as brothers," she continued, calling music their "common bond." She recalled Shankar being so proud of a young Norah when she played the sitar at the Harrisons' home in Los Angeles years ago.
A three-time Grammy winner, the 92-year-old artist who was celebrated for fusing the sounds of East and West over six decades of recording and performing, received a nomination right before he died, for Best World Music Album for The Living Room Sessions, Part 1. Daughter Anoushka is nominated in the same category, for Traveller.
On Dec. 12, a day after his death, the Recording Academy announced Shankar as a recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
"He was such an amazing human being. I'm so grateful for what he's given to the world," Hancock told the Union-Tribune after the service.