The Younger Dagar Brothers: Nasir Zahiruddin Dagar (1933-1994) & Nasir Faiyazuddin Dagar (1934-1989) - LP released in India in 1968

Here we present a quite rare LP by the Junior Dagar Brothers, their very first LP. I recently was able to obtain a copy of this LP, which has certain shortcomings. First the cover had the correct back side, but the front had the cover of a Bollywood LP. In the internet I found a good scan of the correct front cover. But this front cover is from the original LP EASD 1334, whereas our LP and the backcover is from the export edition S/MOAE 181, both released in 1968. Secondly, the LP was not in good condition: it had some cracks and sidenoises.

Our friend LF from Scotland was so kind to clean the recording. Here what he wrote:

"I've just uploaded the processed files into your dropbox. You sent me 24-bit WAV files and I've returned them in the same format. The only problem was with side 2 track 1 where at around 1:28 there is a loud crack in the original. I think that there is a jump there. I expect that no amount of cleaning will get rid of this, unless there is some visible lump of grot stuck on the record.

The repair has no audible crack, but the rhythm suffers a slight jump, but not too awful I think? There are no cracks or pops in the rest of the music, except at very low level.  The recording is very stereo with one brother, with the slightly raspy voice in the left channel and the other brother with a sweet softer voice in the right channel." Thank you very very much, LF.

The voice on the left channel is the one of Zahiruddin Dagar and on the right channel it is Faiyazuddin Dagar.

In 2011 we posted a double LP by the Junior Dagar Brothers. We added now (28th of february) flac files.

About the artists see: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dagar_Brothers

flac
mp3

We will try ADrive now again

As there seems to exist no solution for the Dropbox problems we decided after some reflection to go back to ADrive. ADrive seems to have almost no limitations to downloads. It allows up to 1.000 downloads at the same time which will probably never be reached on our blog. Let's hope things work now without any problems. Step by step we will transfer all Dropbox links to ADrive. We did already the two most recent ones and will still this evening post a new entry.

Dropbox downloads exceeding the limit of 200 GB per day

Dear music lovers, recently it happened several times that Dropbox downloads from my blog were not available, due to the fact that the download volume exceeded the limit of 200 GB per day. If this happens Dropbox blocks downloads for a day. As Dropbox doesn't offer any way to get around this, the only solution is to post in the future less, as I used to do over the last years. Only recently I posted more frequently. Perhaps I will do now only one post every 5 or 7 days and hopefully this will keep the amount of downloads beneath the 200 GB limit. For those who were not able to download I just can only ask them to be patient and wait till things get back to normal. I also ask you, not to share downloadlinks on other platforms as this can generate an enormous increase of downlaods. Thank you.

Rahimuddin Khan Dagar (1901-1976) - Raga Rageshri-Kanhara - Recording (1960) from the archives of AIR released as a cassette in India in 1990

We continue our Dhrupad series with an outstanding recording by Ustad Rahimuddin Khan Dagar. Our blogger friend Bolingo had posted in 2011 the LP which was released the same year, but unfortunately only in mp3 format, as was normal at that time when storage space was still a big issue. Here we offer the cassette both in flac and mp3 formats.

We bought this cassette in the same shop in Little India in Mahattan, NY, as the Mushtaq Ali Khan cassette. I still remember very vividly how happy I was to find these two cassettes as I had heard of these musicians a lot before, but never was able to obtain any music by them.

Last month we had already two posts by the artist. There you can find more information on the artist.

flac

mp3

Zia Mohiuddin Dagar (1929-1990) - Been Recital - Recording (1981) from the archives of AIR released on cassette in India in 1989

Zia Mohiuddin Dagar was a legendary master of the Rudra Veena (Been). He was the only member of the Dagar family who performed an instrumental version of Dhrupad. These recordings were also released the same year on LP. 

On the artist:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zia_Mohiuddin_Dagar

http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~rgarfias/film-sessions/dagar-02/index.htm

http://www.raga.com/cds/222/222booklet.html

http://www.raga.com/cds/219/219text.html

We will return now, after this short excursion into Indian instrumental music, to our Dhrupad series, this recording by Zia Mohiuddin Dagar being a perfect transition. Once this Dhrupad series is finished we will post two LPs by Zia Mohiuddin Dagar.

flac
mp3

Mushtaq Ali Khan (1911-1989) - Sitar Recital - Recording (1964) from the archives of AIR released on cassette in India in 1990

Mushtaq Ali Khan was an outstanding and highly regarded sitar player in mid 20th century, who represented an old style untouched by all the innovations of the new generation of instrumentalists coming up in the 1950s, like Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, Vilayat Khan and Nikhil Banerjee. He belonged to the Senia Gharana going back to Mian Tansen.

On the artist see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushtaq_Ali_Khan

http://prateekchaudhuri.com/ustadmustaq.htm

http://raga.hu/en/jaipur-senia-gharana-2/

http://ragascape.com/History/

http://ragascape.com/Archive/index.html

We found this cassette in the early 1990s in Little India in Manhattan, NY. Little India is really very little, just a couple of Indian shops on Lexington Avenue and another street crossing it. There were back then two shops who had Indian cassettes and CDs. 

This cassette was published originally as an LP in 1989. Our blogger friend Bolingo posted the LP in 2011, but only in mp3 format. That is why we offer here the cassette both in flac and mp3 format.

We had posted in 2014 another cassette by the artist.

flac

mp3

Tejendra Narayan Majumdar - Sarod Recital - Cassette released in India in 1991

Tejendra Narayan Majumdar is for sure the most outstanding Sarod player of his generation. I saw him in the 1990s and the early 2000s quite a number of times in concert in Germany, Belgium and Holland and, if I remember right, also in Paris. He was always excellent, musically full of surprises and an incomparable freshness.

There exist quite a number of CDs by him, released in the US, in UK and in Germany. In India he is reguarly performing on All India Radio, but there are hardly any cassette or CD releases there.

This tape had at the beginning of side A heavy disturbences. After rewinding the tape a couple of times the tape is now ok, but the sound suffered a little bit, compared to side B.

flac
mp3

Debu Chaudhuri - The Lyricism in Sitar - Cassette released in India in 1987

Here a beautiful cassette by Debu Chaudhuri, a disciple of the great Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan of Senia Gharana. These masters of the Senia Gharana play an old style rarely heard today.

In the past we had posted two LPs by the artist.

flac

mp3

Sharmistha Sen - Sitar - Cassette released in India in 1993

Sharmistha Sen learned from Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan of the Senia Gharana and his student Debu Chauduri. As far as I know there are only two CDs by her, one released in the US and one in India.

flac

mp3

Budhaditya Mukherjee - Sitar & Surbahar Recital - Cassette released in India in 1988

Here a beautiful cassette by the well known Sitar master. In the past we posted already three LPs by him. See here. 

flac

mp3

Cassettes coming from India have often certain shortcomings. Sometimes it is in the recording itself (like here), but more often in the manufactoring.