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.

Chandrashekhar Naringrekar - Sitar & Surbahar - Music beyond Words - Cassette released in India in 1980

We take now a little break from our Dhrupad Series - as this might get a little too heavy for a number of visitors of this blog - with some cassettes of instrumental music. We start here with a quite rare cassette by the great Surbahar and Sitar master Chandrashekhar Naringrekar, a student of the Rudra Veena master Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar. This cassettes is perfect as a transition from Dhrupad to instrumental music. We had posted another cassette by him in 2011. See here.

flac

mp3

Ustad Nasir Aminuddin Khan Dagar - Ragas Lalita Gauri, Adana, Bhatiyar & Komal Rishabh Asavari

Here we present some recordings from Saptak Festival in 1982 (apparently from a 90 min. cassette) and an All India Radio Program broadcast in March 2001. Many thanks to KF for the recordings and the covers.

CD 1 - flac

CD 1 - mp3

CD 2- flac

CD 2 - mp3

Nasir Aminuddin Khan Dagar (1923-2000) - Cassette published in India in 1985

Here a beautiful cassette by Aminuddin Dagar of the Senior Dagar Brothers. Judging from the sound of the recordings it was recorded at the same time as the LP published in 1983. Bolingo posted this LP in 2011 on his wonderful blog. See here.

On the artist see:

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

flac

mp3

In my shop on Discogs are still nine volumes of the "The Lyrical Tradition of Dhrupad" series, published by Makar Records, available at a good price. 

See: https://www.discogs.com/seller/Tawfiq49/profile?q=Makar+Dhrupad

Rahimuddin Khan Dagar (1901-1976) - AIR programs & EPs

Here three AIR recordings by the great Dhrupadiya. The two EPs on the second CD were released in 1961.

See: http://discog.piezoelektric.org/hmvindia/index.php?prefix=7EPE. 

Many thanks to KF for the recordings and the covers.
Frontcover: background right: Behram Khan, background left: Allabande Khan, front: Rahimuddin Khan.

CD 1 - flac
CD 1 - mp3

CD 2 - flac
CD 2 - mp3

Rahimuddin Khan Dagar (1901-1976) - Raga Asavari

Ustad Rahimuddin Khan Dagar was one of the very few from the 18th generation of the Dagars of whom quite a number of recordings exist. See the  wonderful LP which Bolingo on his excellent blog posted in 2011  It also exists as a cassette. Here we present a long Raga Asavari by this outstanding Dhrupad master. We received the recording on a CD in the early 2000s from our friend DM, who also made the covers. Many thanks to him. 

This Raga Asavari seems to be the same that was published, slightly edited, on the double CD "The Dhrupad of the Dagar Bani", Edizioni Musicali III Millennio, Roma, Italy, 2003. The source of our version here seems to be a cassette, as the timings suggest. Here from the CD the correct track information:

Raga Asavari:

Alap vilambit 

Alap nom tom madhya and drut 

Dhrupad chautal "Ayo jit hi" & Dhrupad sultal "Ana sunai bansuri Kanha" (same composition that the Senior Dagar Brothers sing on the Unesco LP)

with vocal support by R. Fahimuddin Dagar

Pakhawaj: Pandit Purushottam Das

Ustad Rahimuddin Khan Dagar is the father of Ustad Fahimuddin Dagar. See our post from 2011 here.

Next we will post some AIR broadcasts and two EPs by the great master.

On the artist see:

http://www.dhrupad.info/rahimuddin.htm

flac
mp3

Buddhadev Das Gupta (1 February 1933 - 15 January 2018) - In his memory an LP released in India in 1984

Here we offer in the memory of the great artist another release, his first and only LP.

flac

mp3