Ragni Recordings - An amazing CD collection from Pakistan, published by Zaheer Alam Kidvai. Now available also outside of Pakistan

Last year I discovered Zaheer Alam Kidvai's amazing blog Ragni Recordings, where he presents the 60 CDs he made up to now. The recordings cover basicly three domains: old style Qawwali of the Qawwal Bachon Ka Gharana (Delhi Gharana), classical Raga music and recitations of Urdu poetry. Just about a week ago three new releases were published, amongst them two sets of CDs by the great Agra Gharana singer Asad Ali Khan, of whom only very few recordings were available up to now (see below). Zaheer made his releases now available to music lovers outside of Pakistan on Dropbox as downloads in wave format for a very reasonable price. For more details refer to his blog: Ragni Recordings.
As the CDs were only for sale in Pakistan and quite a number of them I found extremely interesting, I tried to figure out a way to get them. I knew already that shipping things from Pakistan is almost impossible.

So I asked Musab who runs the wonderful blog Tangled Up In Blue, mainly on older Qawwali, if he could help me in any way getting these CDs. I was very touched that he responded immediatly very warmly and told me that a Pakistani living in Vienna was about to visit Pakistan and that he would ask him if he would be so kind to bring the CDs back to Austria and then ship them to me from there. That man also responded very warmly to this request and so after a couple of weeks I had these fantastic CDs (and DVDs) in my hands. This man from Vienna - I found out a little later - was no other than Asifmanu, the one behind the fantastic blog Qaul devoted also to older Qawwali and older Raga music from Pakistan.

Since then I was reguarly in contact with Zaheer Alam Kidvai, reminding him to inform me about future releases. As he is a very busy man it took about a year that the next three relaeses came out: two CD sets by the great Agra singer Asad Ali Khan and a double CD by Munawar Ali Khan.
Ustad Asad Ali Khan was one of the foremost and most outstanding students of Ustad Faiyaz Khan. After partition he went to Pakistan. As far as I know there exists only one commercial recording by him, which we posted a while ago here. The recordings published now by Zaheer Alam Kidvai are from two Mehfils. Very very beautiful old style music.
Ustad Munawar Ali Khan is the well-known son of Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. We posted on our blog three LPs by him here. This new release is also a Mehfil recording.
All these new releases have an amazingly good sound quality though the recordings are Mehfil (private concert) recordings and were done over 40 years ago.

Among the older CDs especially interesting are the 7 volumes by "Manzoor Ahmed Niazi aur Hamnava", here called Badi Party (Badi means - I guess - greater, older, like in Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, the older or greater Ghulam Ali.) The troupe consisted of four major Qawwals: Manzoor Niazi, Munshi Raziuddin, Bahauddin and Iftikhar Ahmad. All these members formed later (in the 1970s) their own ensembles and were the torchbearers of the original Qawwali of the Qawwal Bachon Ka Gharana (Delhi Gharana). The first three became very famous amongst connoisseurs. Today's most outstanding Qawwali ensemble of this old, extremely interesting tradition is the one by Farid Ayaz and his brother Abu Mohammad, the sons of the great Munshi Raziuddin. You find here CDs (and DVDs) by all these artists.

Zaheer just gave me some details on the new releases:

"1. All recordings older than 1970 were on a Sandberg Recorder

All Recordings after 1971 were on a Revox A77 10” Recorder

Most recordings after 2007 were on a Zoom Digital Recorder

Just a few recordings after 2007 were also done on the old Revox.

I prefer the Revox to listen to my recordings and have never felt that CDs match the Analog quality.

Transferring 78s (and most LPs) to CD is Ok, since many of them don’t have the Analog quality and in many cases are scratched etc.

2. The AAK 1 is May 1970

3. The AAK 2 is June 1971

4. More of AAK coming soon.

5. Munawwar’s Karachi Mahfils will all be 1975 (yes there are more)

He came here for a month and asked me to record him and took a copy of each performance. I have the originals."

Addition in October 2018:

All the great classical music and Qawwali CDs from Ragni Recordings are now available for lossless download on Qobuz:

https://www.qobuz.com/ie-en/label/ragnirecordings/download-streaming-albums?page=1#results

Only the ones with light classical music and poetry recitation are not available. This makes it now much easier to obtain them.

Gharanon Ki Gaiki - Vol. 19 - Asad Ali Khan - Agra Gharana

flac

mp3

Ustad Asad Ali Khan was an outstanding disciple of the great Ustad Fayyaz Khan. He was already well-known in India in the 1940s, before he went to Pakistan after partition. There unfortunately - it seems - he never became very well known, judging from the few recordings which exist. I guess these musicians were mainly known for their - often privately organized - concerts (Mehfils).

Raju Asokan, the great collector, has shared recently two wonderful long performances by him on his YouTube channel:

Raga Ramkali

Raga Nat Bihag

Here some memories by a singer, Moni Babu, who learned, among other greats of the Agra Gharana, also from Ustad Asad Ali Khan: 

"Ustadji’s (Tassadaq Hussain Khan's) nephew Asad Ali was a wonderful singer. He moved to Karachi after partition. Till then we thought that in Ustad’s absence Asad was the one who would bear the mantle. Once in a programme from Delhi Radio he gave a recital of Sayaji Kanada. It was an unbelievable performance that haunted me for many days. When Asad returned to Agra, I pleaded with him to show me the nuances of the raga. Ustadji was not at home when we started but suddenly returned from somewhere. Asad received the scolding of his life and literally fell at his feet. I was speechless at the developments and vanished from the scene. Later Ustadji called me the same day and taught me till I was able to sing it myself. The fact was , none except him was allowed to teach. I was clearly told not to depend on anybody else and ask him whatever I wanted to know. I had seen similar things to happen to others also.

He affectionately called me Maharaj and treated me like one. On Sundays his own tonga would pick me up and drop me back. Money was never an issue. Whenever and whatever I could afford to give was fine. Agra was witness to the most terrible riots during partition time. Ustadji’s house was at the end of a lane  through a red-light area , lined on both sides with beef-shops on the ground floor  . No Hindu would even think of going there those days, particularly during the nights. I had never told anything to him but was naturally a bit concerned because it was quite late in the night by the time I returned from Ustadji’s house. One day Ustadji called a man named Abdul and told him “Abdul, he is my son. Nothing should happen to him”. From that day onwards, two persons would escort me every day till I reached the safe Hindu locality. So much for discrimination”.

Read here the complete story: 

http://www.alaap-agragharana.com/The__Musical_Journey.html

Some information on the Agra Gharana:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agra_gharana

http://www.the-south-asian.com/april2001/Pakistan%20Music-Classical.htm