Nikhil Banerjee - Râga Monomanjari - Paris 1975

Le Sitar de Nikhil Banerjee • Râga Monomanjari 
Prestige de la musique extraeuropéenne, l'Inde vol.1
Disques Espêrance - ESP 155530 - P.1976 



Nikhil Banerjee, this time recorded in Paris 1975. I like very much his more contemplative and slower pace while developing the ragas, and this is one time we have to admit that the format of the LP is not ideal. We are left with beautiful music but still feel a little betrayed as it ends so fast. The longer format of the CD is of course better suited and still the LP was such a tremendous leap from the cut up pieces on 78 rpm's that had to extend over several sides. The affection remains because often we can only hear some of the best artists in recordings on older media. Hope you enjoy this record from this french series with a rather quaint and pretentious name but with the most lovely of all psychedelic covers of the seventies. We had a few of them here already, but there will be several more coming later from this series. Hope you enjoy!








Side A

A1 Râga Monomanjari, alap, gat - 23'15
dans le style dhrupad, raga du soir

Side B 

B1 Râga Manj Khamaj, alap, gat - 15'15
dans le style thumri, raga du début de la nuit

B2 Bengal Folk tune - 9'00





Music ▼ +

Bengal - Musical Atlas - Unesco

Bengal - Musical Atlas - Unesco

Recordings, Commentary and Photographs by Manfred Junius, Alain Daniélou, Samir Naguib

EMI-Italiana - 3 C 064-17840 P.1972

Purna Chandra Das & Haripado Deva Nath

Side A

A1 Baul song - Purna Chandra Das and Party 5'11

A2 Baul song - Purna Chandra Das and Party 4'37

A3 Baul song - Haripado Deva Nath 3'17

A4 Bhatiyali song - Haripado Deva Nath 3'20

A5 Flute - Debu Bhattacharji 6'42

A6 Flute - Ahmad Shafui 2'40

A7 Flute - Ahmad Shafui 2'13

Side B

B1 Bhajana - Rathin Ghosh and Party 11'40

B2 Kirtana - Rathin Ghosh and Party 12'07

B3 Song - Firdausi Begum 3'01

B4 Song - Sham Sunhar Karimar 3'09

Here is another album with music from Bengal this time recorded not by Deben Bhattacharya but by Manfred Junius, Samir Naguib and with the hand of Alain Daniélou in the notes and selection. Deben was working for Alain Daniélou around the 1950's before going to London. I wonder what kind of work that was and how much music it was an influence to either party. I have not run out of Deben's recordings , nor have I ran out of recordings of Bauls and Bengali music, I just thought it would be good with some change like "same same" but different... There are so many good records and so much good music I often do not know where to continue. Anyhow rest assured that there will be many more field recordings not only by Deben Bhattacharya but by many others. Anyhow I always considered the music of much bigger importance than who recorded it. Not that I am not full of gratitude to the people who did make it possible for us to hear this but the river that flows on and on is always bigger than a drink of water no matter how refreshing. Some of this music actually does not quench my thirst but makes me more thirsty and wanting to drink more and more...

Music ▼ +

Musik från Bengalen - Rec. Deben Bhattacharya

Musik från Bengalen (Music from Bengal)

recordings and notes by Deben Bhattacharya

Caprice - RIKS LPX 7 (CAP 1088) - P.1974

Side 1

1 Dansay-dans 3'00

2 Sångdans 2'50

3 Dohai guru 6'25

4 Folkmelodier på anandalahari 3'30

5 Olo konya 2'30

6 Sång till grödan; Kanichhat garinu 3'45

Side 2

7 Mono cholo kashidam 6'00

8 Are Musalmane bolego Allah 2'30

9 Bou-nach (bruddans) 3'20

10 Båtsånger från Bangladesh 5'30

11 Instrumentalt framförda folkmelodier 5'40

Music ▼ +

Chants et Danses Populaires du Bengale - recorded by Deben Bhattacharya

Chants et Danses Populaires du Bengale

Documents sonores recueilles et enregistrés par Deben Bhattacharya

Bôite à Musique - BAM LD 076 - P.1964

Side A

A1 Paus Barban (chant de paysans) 4'14

A2 Bhatiali (chant de bateliers) 5'23

A3 Chant et danse Baul 7'10

A4 Jhumur (danse de Printemps) 4'34

A5 Sari Gan (chant de rameurs) 2'19

Side B

B1 Chant du Ramayana (par les Santals) 2'38

B2 Chant de fete de Badhna 4'14

B3 Kali kacha nritya (danse de Kali) 6'57

B4 Vaishnava Giti (chant de dévotion) 4'02

B5 Jari Gan (chœur d'enfents et tambour) 4'20

B6 Dhali nritya (danse de bâtons) 2'28

Here is another post of some very interesting recordings made by Deben Bhattacharya in the early sixties. Several of these are of music traditions he would come back to with regular intervals. The sleeve notes also by him are unfortunately only in french. Still rather more accessible than some of the coming albums where very informative and longer texts by him are mostly in swedish. Well, there is always the aid of automatic translation for the languages we do not have immediate access to, at least as long as we don't make any typos.

Music ▼ +

Religious Songs from Bengal recorded by Deben Bhattacharya

Chants religieux du Bengale - Religious Songs from Bengal

enregistrés aux Indes et édités par Deben Bhattacharya

Bôite à Musique - BAM LD 099 - P.1970

Side A

Songs of the Bauls

A1 The new man of love and faith 8'40

A2 On understanding oneself 3'40

A3 Cultivate the human land 7'00

A4 Release your worldly weight 4'45

Purna Chandra A3

Bhaktadas Baul A2

Haripada Debnath A1, A4

Side B

Poèmes de Chandidas (XIV• siècle)

B1 Poèmes de Chandidas 22'20

a) Instrumental opening

b) Extempore song and commentary about Krishna's greatness

c) A version of Chandida's song "O firend, who made me hear the name of Shyam?

d) Improvisation, song and commentary about Krishna's encounter with Brinda duti

e) Chandida's song: "It is a disgrace"

Shri Nabagopal, vocal

This is the first of a series of posts where I will pay homage to the work of Deben Bhattacharya to make so many musical traditions known. A well deserved tribute to a remarkable person who was responsible for preserving so much music mostly of the popular traditions from so many different countries but never neglecting the musique savante. I will start by posting some of his early Indian recordings, mainly because the first real contact with live concerts of Indian classical and folk music that I ever had was through the concerts he had helped to arrange together with Rikskonserter while he was living in Sweden from the 1960's - 1970's. It was not just art music but also folkmusic like the Rajastani music of the Langas. That was the first Indian folk music I had ever heard and to hear that live in repeated concerts several hours long with singers and musicians like Alladin, Noor Mohmad and Shumar Khan. Some of these concerts were recorded and broadcasted by the Swedish Radio. I will post some of those broadcasts a little later on. Here is a little something about those times that Deben Bhattacharya spoke about in a most interesting interview that he gave to Kevin Daly in 1982.

"Between ’61 and ’62 I went to live in Stockholm. Sweden was very fruitful for me; Stockholm Radio began to take fairly regular programmes from me. Soon after that, a new organisation called Rikskonsert started in Stockholm. It was run by a man called Nils Wallend, and its job was to impart musical education in Swedish schools, from playgroup to adult – all paid for by the state. They invited me to produce the extra-European music and also I got involved with music of the socialist countries because I had done a lot of work in those countries, and I had a fairly large collection of music from most of the socialist countries except Russia. I brought musical groups from various countries to Sweden, to appear at concerts and in schools to show them what music of other countries was like." You can read the full interview here...

Also don't forget to take a stroll over to the excellent post on the recordings made by Deben Bhattacharya in Israel in June and July in 1957 at the blog here, The World's Jukebox...

A very young Deben Bhattacharya with a gopijantra-playing Baul.

Anandalahari

Shri Nabogopal Mithra Shakur

The true sleeve backside

Substitute scavenged from the inside flap.

Music ▼ +