Krishnarao Shankar Pandit (1893-1989) - A Broadcast from All India Radio (AIR) with Raga Yaman Kalyan, Raga Paraj & Bhairavi Tappa

Here our last post - at least for now - of the great Krishnarao Shankar Pandit. We received these recordings many years ago, if I remember correctly, from the collector VN in UK. Our friend KF made a CD out of them and created a cover. Many thanks to both.

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Addition on October 27th 2017

Here a beautiful story about the artist:

In late January 1970, at the concert hall Rabindra Sadan in Kolkata, Panditji’s program was scheduled one early evening. Supravat Da and I went to the concert hall with our tape recorder to record Panditji’s program. Both of us were not familiar with Panditji’s singing, although we knew that he was one of the great singers of Gwalior Gharana. We had an uneasy feeling that the organizers might not allow us to record the program. It exactly happened that way. The organizers bluntly told us that recording was not allowed. Suddenly I saw Panditji on the back stage and I approached him. After initial greetings, I told him that I would like to record his program but I was not successful in receiving permission to do so from the organizers. Panditji was an older dignified person of seventy-eight, very accommodating and very easy to talk to. He immediately got me the permission to record his program.

I learnt that Panditji arrived at four in the afternoon by train from Gwalior and from the Railway station he went to visit Pandit Tarapada Chakraborty who had been hospitalized. This was a news for us. Panditji was living in Gwalior, knew that Tarapada Babu was ill, and we, the people of Kolkata, had absolutely no information about it.

It is impossible to describe Panditji’s singing. It was unique. His style of singing had no similarity with any other singers I knew of and I do not know if any singer could successfully imitate him. I was fascinated by his control and precision. I was simply overwhelmed. Even today, his Shree, Chaturang in Dabari and many other ragas are among my very favorite.

After the program I met Panditji and before I could say anything, he told me to come to his concert at Birla Academy, which was taking place the next morning. The next morning I passed some time with Panditji before the concert and requested him to sing a few morning ragas of my choice. He sang all the ragas I requested except Paraj; for that one, he said the timing was not right.

Panditji had no idea who I was, what my name was but he was kind and generous enough to invite me to his morning concert and kept my request.

Pt. Krishnarao Shankar Pandit was a great singer, a legend and above all a great human being.

In a private concert of Zia Mohiuddin Dagar in New York in 1980, during the intermission, Dagar Saheb, Sheila Dhar and I were talking. I wanted to know Dagar Saheb’s view of Pt. Krishnarao Shankar Pandit. I am always careful not to praise one musician in front of other musicians. I told Dagar Saheb that one vocalist impressed me very much. After he learnt that I was talking about Krishnarao Shankar Pandit, he was surprised at first then asked me, “Chowdhury saab tell me, who can sing like Pandji?” After superlative compliments about Panditji’s music he told me, “ In a concert if he sings whole night, I will also remain there whole night to listen to him.”

from the outstanding YouTube channel by Subrata Chowdhury (may he rest in peace):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilC2K7itBpE

Mallikarjun Mansur (1911-1992) - A Doyen of the Gwalior & Atrauli-Jaipur Gharana - LP published in India in 1988

Though the artist orginally learned from a master of the Gwalior Gharana and there exist quite a number of 78 rpm records on which he sings in this style, his later music is pure Jaipur Gharana. In effect the finest example of Jaipur Gharana after the founder Alladiya Khan and his two sons.

On the artist see:

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

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pandit-mallikarjun-mansur-the-oldest-and-most-stylish-exponents-of-khayal/1/329835.html

http://www.surgyan.com/mallikarjunmansur.htm

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Mallikarjun Mansur – The Man and the Musician by H Y Sharada Prasad

Mallikarjun Mansur is no more. The torrent has gone back into the magic mountain from where it used to flow.

He sang for more than sixty years. And he sang till almost the very last, although he had been so continuously harassed by illness. I recall a private concert he gave in Delhi just five or six months ago when he was kind enough to tell the hosts to ask me to be present. On that occasion he apologised to the audience for not being able to sing for even two hours.

There was always a special intensity to his singing, a special urgency and earnestness in his treatment of melody. These are days when the voice can be preserved, unlike earlier centuries, or the beginning of the phonograph with three-and-seven minute records. Some may say that the immortals of music can now be truly immortalised. But a record of a Mansur concert can never be a substitute for the live one — for each time he sang with a new creative impulse, and in each rendering there were several surprises. His Patdeep or Shivmat Bhairav of today would be a different experience from his Patdeep and Shivmat Bhairav of yesterday.

So many of our well-known authors and artists move about with a swagger for they seem to believe that they are indeed colossi striding the scene. They are all the time looking at those who are looking at them. Mallikarjun did not possess a regal bearing. He did not clothe himself in princely robes. He did not care to be the centre of attraction. He was content to be inconspicuous. He continued to look like a shopkeeper’s accountant. He did not speak like an oracle. He rarely referred to his triumphs. He won not only the respect but the affection of his contemporaries. He was wholly without envy. His was an unfailing geniality and lightness of heart. His airs were what he sang. He did not put on any.

Those who met him never failed to wonder at his combination of eminence and humility. His autobiography would throw some light on this riddle of Mallikarjun. “Nanna Rasayatre” (which could be rendered rather inadequately as “My Emotional Pilgrimage” — for there is no satisfactory English equivalent for “rasa”) is a little masterpiece. But few know about it because it is in his mother tongue, Kannada.

Most autobiographies in our country are by political persons or by literary men. Few are by artists. Mansur’s book cannot be compared with Yehudi Menuhin’s in its length or its depiction of a musician’s challenges and rewards. Mansur tells us that his fingers are meant to play the tanpura and not ply a pen. He took up the book only under the pressure of a couple of literary friends — A. N. Krishna Rao of Karnataka and P. L. Deshpande of Maharashtra. He had kept no diary. His intention in writing the book ultimately was not to impress but to record his debt to his musical and spiritual preceptors.

Mallikarjun’s reverence for his teachers comes out strongly especially for Nilkantha Buwa and for the sons of Alladiya Khan — Manji Khan and Burji Khan. For him they were perennial rivers from whom he could not draw enough. Even when he was nearing forty he kept going from his hometown Dharwad to Kolhapur for lessons from Burji Khan.

Writing nearly thirty-five years after Burji Khan’s death, he would say that his gurus continued to guide him in spirit, inspiring him, enabling him to understand the meaning of music, and bringing him whatever reputation he had gained.

Outwardly the most captivating aspect of Mallikarjun’s music was its dramatic element. He went on the stage even as a young boy, following in the footsteps of his elder brother, and made a name for himself as Prahlada, Dhruv and Narada. But he also left the stage early, when he was still in his teens. The musician Nilkantha Buwa heard him and told his brother: “Give this lad to me. I shall make him a musician. His genius should not be wasted in theatre companies.” The Buwa himself was with a religious establishment and apprenticeship to him was more than a musical training.

Although he had made several discs for HMV even in his early twenties, music did not become a paying profession to Mallikarjun until much later in life. His mother’s faith sustained him initially. After his marriage, his wife somehow managed the house, convinced that she should aid his tapas.

One of the most moving chapters in the autobiography concerns Mallikarjun’s mother. The family decided to go on a pilgrimage to the famous Saivite temple at Srisailam. Once there, Mallikarjun went to have a dip in the sacred pool, leaving his coat at the top of the steps. When he came up, the coat had disappeared and with it all the money of the party as well as the return tickets. He spent the whole day and evening moping. But his mother put heart into him. When it was nearly midnight, she took him to the temple and asked him to sing. The main door had been closed, but Mallikarjun obeyed his mother’s command. He began to sing and soon the singer was lost in his song. To his surprise a priest opened the door and asked the group to go in.

Mallikarjun’s mother stood before the idol and made a prayer: “Lord, if you are true, take me unto yourself. I have no further interest in living. This is my only plea to you.”

Mallikarjun joked and told her: “How can He take you unless we let you go?”

Dinkar Kaikini (1927-2010) - Raga Nand, Paraj & Bhajan - LP released in India in 1985

Dinkar Kaikini was a well-known singer of the Agra Gharana. Here we present a beautiful LP from 1985. Dhruba Ghosh is providing Sarangi accompaniment. So we have here the third recording in a row involving Dhruba Ghosh: first a LP by his legendary father Nikhil Ghosh, the great Tabla master, with Sarangi accompaniment by Dhruba Ghosh. Then the very first solo album by Dhruba Ghosh. And now as the third post a LP by one of his teachers, Dinkar Kaikini, providing Sarangi accompaniment for the singer.

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Vilayat Hussain Khan (1895-1962) - A great singer of the Agra Gharana - Performances recorded by his students - CD 1 & 2

Here we present a privately done double CD by Vilayat Hussain Khan, next to Faiyaz Khan the greatest singer of the Agra Gharana of the 20th century. T-Series had published in 1997 a series of six CDs by him with recordings from the archives of All India Radio. Unfortunately these are no longer available for many years. info@raga-maqam-dastgah.com might still have one or two of these volumes.

The recordings we present here were done during Mehfils by his students. Music of exquisite beauty.

CD 1 & Scans - wave
CD 2 - wave

CDs 1 & Scans - mp3
CD 2 - mp3

Many thanks to KF from whose collection these recordings are and who designed the covers.

"Ustad Vilayat Husain Khan (1895-1962) was one of the greatest figures of the Agra Gharana, who excelled both as singer and teacher. He was the fourth son of the legendary singer, Natthan Khan. After he lost his father at the age of six, he was looked after by his relatives, Kallan Khan and Mohammad Baksh, durbar musicians in Jaipur and received his initial training from them. In 1914, he moved to Mumbai to live with and learn from his older brother, Mohammad Khan. Here his gurus also included Ghulam Abbas and Tasadduk Khan.

Vilayat Husain Khan had documented the names and materials of 42 gurus, including Ustad Faiyaz Khan, from whom he took taleem in the course of his distinguished life. He inherited, imbibed and developed a style which was both individualistic and representative of the Agra Gharana. Khan Sahab, was a bridge between the last phase of the Durbar music and the modern period. His music was steeped in Sangeet Vidya (the science of music) and authentic `gayaki`. 

Khan Sahab had a large repertoire of compositions in dhrupad, dhamar, khayal etc and his renditions were marked by distinctive extempore bol-bant and fine layakari. He composed bandishes in many ragas including some very rare ones under the nom-de-plume `Pran Piya`. He also composed rubaiyat, nazm, marsiya and soz under the pen name, `Shafaq`. He also authored "Sangeetagyon ke Samsmaran", a collection of biographical sketches of a large number of musicians. His significant contribution has been in the Drut-Chhota Khayal in some uncommon ragas, in which till then, only Vilambit Khayals were available. His command over difficult and complicated ragas made them seem deceptively easy. 

Khan Sahab had several disciples in Maharashtra, and the region owes its eminence in Hindustani music to the work of generous teachers like him. Some of his well known students were Mogubai Kurdikar, Jagannathbuwa Purohit (Gunidas), Menaka Shirodkar (mother of Shobha Gurtu), Ram Marathe, Gajananrao Joshi, Sumati Mutatkar, as well as his sons in law, Sharafat Hussain Khan and Latafat Hussain Khan and his son, Yunus Hussain Khan. His most famous guru-shishya relationship was with Jagannathbuwa Purohit and each of them composed several bandishes dedicated to the other. 

He was a court musician of Mysore for sometime and also lived in Kashmir for a while, as tutor to the young prince Karan Singh. After independence, he was appointed as a Sangeet Salhakar (Advisor) to All India Radio, Delhi. Ustad Vilayat Husain Khan was conferred the title of `Sangeetacharya` from Mysore Darbar and received the `Sangeet Ratnakar` from Allahabad Sangeet Parishad."

From: http://www.itcsra.org/tribute.asp?id=28