Jamaluddin Bhartiya • Two Ragas

Jamaluddin Bhartiya 
• Two Ragas 
Opus 3 - 8004 - P.1980

Side A 

A1 Nat Bhairav 24'04

Side B

B1 Sindhu Bhairavi 24'51

Rashid Jamal, tabla

Razia Ragini, tanpura

Recorded March 24-25 1980 in the hall Universel, Sufi Movement

Katwijk, Holland.

Here is a record that I had hoped would satisfy some of the urges of a senior editor at Panchamkauns who had an unquenchable thirst for the Ustads vocal meandering. He wanted almost desperately to hear him sing along with his sitar (which he supposedly does much better than Vilayat Khan) but unfortunately I cannot hear as much as a hum from the maestro. I'll post it anyhow and if someone else has a recording where we can hear him bursting into vocals, please share it with us here. There is one on Space Records SP 4, recorded in Amsterdam 1972 that I have not heard that may be a possible candidate. 

The Artist

As it is very often the case in India, Jamaluddin Bhartiya comes from a family which has been devoted to music for centuries. It is his father Ustad Abdul Qadar Khan, a court musician in Sailana State, who introduced him to music. Then he recieved guidance in vocal music from the famous Ustad Amir Khan. But his main interest was the sitar; therefore he required Pandit Ravi Shankar to teach him, and had the honour of becoming his first disciple.

After having built a flourishing career as a concert and radio artist, Jamaluddin Bhartiya embarked on a new chalange; that of bringing the richness of the Indian musical tradition to the west. With the blessing of his guru Ravi Shankar, he established the Tritantri Vidya Peeth, a school for the teaching of Indian music and culture. Branches have been opened in Holland and Switzerland, and they attract each year numerous students from many countries.

As a performer, Jamaluddin Bhartiya is extremely appreciated, both in India and abroad, for the beauty aud profoundness of his style, in the pure tradition of the gayaki ang, as well as for the striking dexterity of his technique.

On this recording, he is accompanied by Rashid Jamal on the tabla, and by

Razia Ragini on the tanpura.

Music ▼ +

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!

Music ▼ +

Nikhil Banerjee - Ragas - Lalit, Sindhu Bhairavi, Puriya Kalyan

EMI Music from India Series - ⑥

Nikhil Banerjee - Raga Lalit, Raga Sindhu Bhairavi, Raga Puriya Kalyan

HMV Great Britain - ASD 2394 - P.1968

A1 Raga Lalith

A2 Raga Sindhu Bhairavi

B1 Raga Puriya Kalyan

This LP by Nikhil Banerjee was the third LP from this series that I came in contact with and I post it here and will go on with the others as they materialize.

The whole series ran as listed in the previous post and I don't know of any higher number than vol. 11. So if you know better, I would be delighted if you please inform me. Also I feel a certain need to declare that this is in no way the best of the best Indian music as I understand it today or as my taste has evolved. But this is what really got me hooked. The change in taste was especially noticable, when I, upon moving to a larger city and finding more knowledgable new friends with similar but more developed tastes came in contact with the vocal music. I almost immediately stopped listening to any instrumental and immersed myself in the beautifully expressional voices of India first north and then south. Still most indian classical buffs where only into "instrumental" but in the vocal muisc I where to find much more satisfaction. Not that I don't appreciate instrumental, I still do, but the voice, and especially the male voice, is more attuned to my ear. Later posts will cover much of that and then, when still a little later I also discovered the magic intensity and glow of the Karnatic Music with The Saint composers of the Trinity and Swathi Thirunal the sky opened much wider and my heaven became bigger...

But now I am running ahead of myself, so more about that later...

Music▼ +