Friday, January 28, 2011

Bhimsen Joshi - Memorial posts - Recorded in his home on his 65th birthday!









Indisk Konstmusik - Gammal tradition i en ny värld
(Indian art-music - Old Tradition in a New World)
Caprice - CAP 2022 - P.1987


Prof. Debu Chaudhuri, sitar

Side A

A1 Raga Bagesri 21'30
A2 Raga Maund 7'55

A1, A2 recorded in the home of Debu Chaudhuri, New Delhi, 87.01.28
recorded 23 years ago on the day!


Dr. S. Balachander, veena

Side B

B1 Raga Varali - Ne pogoda kunte - Thyagaraja 28'45

B1 recorded in Bani Center, Madras 87.01.03



Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, vocal

Side C

C1 Raga Todi - Aaj more mana logo langarawa - Khayal 14'59
C2 Raga Bhairavi - Thumri 12'32

C1, C2 recorded in the home of Bhimsen Joshi, Poona 87.02.06
recorded on his 65'th Birthday!





Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, flute

Side D

D1 Hariprasad Chaurasia - Raga Mishra Khamaj - 12'46

Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, santur

D2 Pandit Shivkumar Sharma - Raga Chandrakauns 12'50


D1 recorded in the home of Hariprasad Chaurasia, Bombay 87.02.03
D2 recorded in the home of Shivkumar Sharma, Bombay 87.02.03



This is the final memorial post of Bhimsen Joshi for at least a week or so. Not because I ran out of records to post but we really should not have so much of the best at the same time.

The good friend Arvind reported in at the last moment with these reading fruits from studying obituaries to Bhimsen Joshi the whole day.

He writes:

This one by Deepa Ganesh in The Hindu I found most interesting. Though its short, there is a considerable amount of insight, into the man and his music, and many good anecdotes. I think she tells the story (which will now enter legend) of how the young Bhimsen ran away from home and ultimately found his way to Sawai Gandharva and the Kirana gharana, in a very interesting way:

A wanderer both in life and in music, Bhimsen would often go missing from home, to his parents' great worry. From the age of three, he was wont to wander off — following the muezzin's prayer of Allahu Akbar as he tried to grasp its notes, or listening to the musicians in a nearby temple. As if in a trance, the little child would follow bhajan mandalis and wedding processions, completely tuned to musical notes and switched off to all else. His father would often lodge complaints with the police, only to find that a Good Samaritan had brought the boy back home. However, at 11, the boy left home for good after quarrelling with his mother, because she could not afford to serve him ghee with rice. He stomped out, leaving his food untouched. This turned out to be the turning point in his musical journey too. Listening to the gramophone recording of Raga Jhinjoti sung by the maestro of the Kirana Gharana, Ustad Abdul Karim Khan, in a nearby teashop, he set his heart on learning from him. He stood at the Gadag station and took a train heading north. The penniless lad gave ticket collectors the slip by moving between compartments, singing songs for fellow passengers and begging for food. He stopped at Pune, Bombay and finally, after three months, reached Gwalior. He met and learnt from various maestros, but was not satisfied. He then went from Kharagpur to Calcutta, and on to Delhi, finally reached Jalandhar, where the Gwalior maestro, Vinayak Rao Patwardhan, advised him to learn from Sawai Gandharv in Kundagol, Karnataka. - It continues here


These recordings were made in connection with the India Festival '87, a comprehensive presentation of Indian Culture in Sweden in 1987. Bhimsen Joshi held several concerts in Stockholm and I was fortunateley able to attended all of them. Unfortunately I have not been able to locate any recording from these concerts but maybe if we are lucky, someone sees this post and points me to some location where I can search. Better yet, someone has a recording and shares it with us! There are indeed other very well known artists on this record , and I may come back later with individual post of the these artists but the reason I don't dwell upon them is because my main reason to post this double LP is because of the C-side with Bhimsen Joshi recordings. Again we can thank my good friend his Excellency who kept this record away from the dents of time. The recording with Debu Chaudhuri is made in his home in Bombay 23 years ago on the day! The recording of Bhimsen Joshi is made on the 6th of February in 1987, in his home in Poona, and on his 65th birthday! In little more than a week, that is 23 years ago!





16 comments:

Janas said...

A great artist accompanied by phenomenal musicians, beautiful music. Thank you very much Bolingo and greetings to Bhimsen Joshi, wherever he is.

Anonymous said...

An exceptional post! Thank you very much, sir!

arvind said...

Thanks to you, bo and to his Excellency for unearthing another interesting record! It was a pleasure to know that such a record exists at all, and the idea of recording them in their homes, is I think a great one, and something that can be replicated with other recordings as well!

There are already many records here that could give a listener a good panoramic view of Indian Classical music, and this can be included with the rest of them, though it concentrates more on hindustani music.

bolingo69 said...

Happy you liked it and yes I think it is a good idea to record artists in their homer there may be some more of that later. I also promise that there will be a lot of Carnatic music soon !Arvind there is just so many records waiting to be posted. But there are lots of MSS that will come soon and incredible Nagaswaram... there is just so little time ;-)

Anonymous said...

Wow!

Many years ago I got a friend to pick this LP up for me from a library in (I think) Västerås (or Linköping, or even Gothenburg!). Not for the flute or santoor recordings, but especially Balachander wasn’t easy to find in Sweden in those days.

I taped the record but I never digitized — or indeed listened very much to — the cassette. So it’s great to see you have this album! Of course I shouldn’t be surprised — indeed I wouldn’t be but for the fact that I had long forgotten that it even existed. "Kudos"!

JV

kokolo said...

Bo, there are a lot of things I should thank you for, so why not start here.
Thank you Bo!

Gagan said...

I discovered this blog just today. It's a great site to unearth gems of music. Specifically in reference to Bhimsen Joshi (now that he has passed away) I am reminded of his impromptu singing at my friend's home when my friends father passed away (apparently they both were fast friends from childhood).

BTW, are the recordings discussed on this blog are available for download?

Thanks for the great work!

arvind said...

Gagan, maybe you already figured it out, but if you didn't,you can download the music by clicking on the word "Music" at the end of each post.

Gagan said...

Thanks Arvind, that is "Music" to my ears :)

Anonymous said...

the link is off. Very Great Blog !!!!

Vitaliy said...

This file "CAP2022_Indisk_konstmusik.zip" - is broken file - null bite.
Please reupload this file, thnx.

Anonymous said...

The download link is not working. Returns a file with zero bytes.

AleKs said...

Hi dear, I really admire you and the great work you are doing, the world needs more people like you!
I found your blog only 2 days ago and I'm downloading everything I can like a mad!
Thank you thank you thank you!
I just found a problem on this post, the zip file is empty, says 0 bites. Do you mind to check it out please?
Thanks again!
Aleks

Nostalgic.Khan565 said...

The download link is not working. Plz re-upload the file . Thanks

Anonymous said...

Indeed, the download link is dysfunctional! Please do re-upload. Thanks a lot for the share :D

Tanuj said...

Appreciate if you can please reupload.