Organist Korla Pandit was an alluring enigma, a television pioneer and the godfather of exotica music. He never spoke a word on 900 episodes of his groundbreaking 1950s TV program but captured the hearts of countless Los Angeles housewives with his soulful, hypnotic gaze and theatrical performance of popular tunes and East Indian compositions on the newly developed Hammond B3 organ. In the ’90s he resurfaced as a cult figure with the tiki/lounge music aficionados and ended up immortalized in the film Ed Wood. Often pegged as a “man of mystery,” Korla lived up to that billing when he took an amazing secret with him to his grave in 1998—one that is finally revealed in KORLA.
John Turner
Director
Korla Pandit
self (archival)
Scott Alexander
self
Harry Edwards
self
Booker T. Jones
self
Marty Pasetta
self
Carlos Santana
self
Ben Fong-Torres
self
The Captains63%
Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story62%
Vernon, Florida68%
David Blaine: Beyond Magic71%
Kumaré68%
Room 23761%
Sidney70%
Voyeur59%
Above Majestic73%
Elstree 197661%
A Plastic Ocean75%
The Secret65%
Won't You Be My Neighbor?79%
David Blaine: Real or Magic67%
The Class of ‘9271%
Lionel Messi: Destiny78%
Our Planet: Behind the Scenes76%
Seduced and Abandoned61%
In the Realms of the Unreal71%
For the Love of Spock73%
