Budhaditya Mukherjee - Soulful Melodies on Sitar Strings - Cassette released in India in 1989

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Budhaditya Mukherjee - Raga Ahir Bhairav & Raga Puriya - LP released in India in 1979

Here the artist's first album on The Gramophone Company of India. One can hear here the artist's proximity to Ustad Vilayat Khan. He plays in Raga Puriya the same composition as Vilayat Khan did on an LP in 1976. Budhaditya's version seems almost like a copy. But even if so this a great album.

The complete education of Budhaditya Mukherjee took place under his father Bimalendu Mukherjee, who was a reprentative of the Imdadkhani Gharana.

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Budhaditya Mukherjee - Sitar Wizard - LP released in India in 1978

Here a wonderful and quite rare LP by the brilliant Budhaditya Mukherjee. Until recently it was missing in my collection. I even didn't know of its existence till a couple of years ago. It is the second LP by the artist. I bought already his first LP when it came out and then followed his career buying all his other LPs as they came out and also a number of his CDs. This is the 5th recording by the artist on our blog. We will post two more in the next couple of days.

This LP I bought recently from India. As almost always with used LPs from India it suffers from certain shortcomings. The most visible are the waterstains on the back. I think this comes with the years from the extreme humidity of the monsoon season. I even have a number of LPs which had had in the past mold on the back. The LP itself has quite some surface noises, which might have come from being played many times with a quite used needle. LPs in India suffer often also from dust. With ClickRepair it was easy to get rid of these surface noises.

The funny thing is that this LP was sold as being in a 85 to 90% perfect condition for the LP and the cover was judged excellent. This one has probably to understand in an Indian context where old LPs are in general in much worse conditions. But anyway, I'm happy to have this LP now.

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Shujaat Khan - Sitar - The New Star on the Musical Horizon - LP released in India in 1979

This is - as far as I know - the very first release by Shujaat Khan, the very able son of Ustad Vilayat Khan. He was then just 18 or 19 years old.

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Vilayat Khan - Monumental Music of Sitar Nawaz Ustad Vilayat Khan assisted by Shujat Khan on Surbahar - Cassette released in India in 1989

Here a quite rare cassette by Ustad Vilayat Khan, together with his son Shujaat Khan on Surbahar. It was never republished on CD. 

There exists another recording of the same Raga by both artists, done in 1993 live in London. It was released by Navras in 1995 on CD and DVD.

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Vilayat Khan - Sitar Samrat - Raga Gawoti - Cassette released in India in 1986

Here another very beautiful cassette by Ustad Vilayat Khan. The second side was republished on a compilation CD: Aftaab-e-Sitar (1988). The complete recording was on CD 4 of a box of five CDs: The Best of Ustad Vilayat Khan Ever (2012).

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Vilayat Khan - Sandhi Prakash - Raga Purvi - Cassette released in India in 1991

Here a very beautiful, but little known recording by the exquisite Ustad Vilayat Khan. As far as I know the recording was only once rereleased on CD: on CD 2 of a compilation box of three CDs called "The Great Heritage".

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Mohammad Sharif Khan Poonchwalay - Sitar - Vol. 3 - Cassette released in Pakistan in 1988

Mohammad Sharif Khan Poonchwalay was one of the greatest Sitar players of his generation. We posted in the past already six recordings by the artist. Unfortunately I have only the vol. 3 of this series of three cassettes.

Side 1:

1. Raga Bhairavi

2. Mishra Khamaj

Side 2:

Raga Basant Bahar

From the logic of the music probably the two sides should be reversed.

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Nikhil Banerjee - In Concert - Raga Hem Bihag - Cassette released in India in 1986

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Nikhil Banerjee - Le Sitar du Pandit Nikhil Banerjee - Raga Jogiya-Kalingada - LP released in France in 1983

With the last three posts by Ustad Sarahang we arrived back to Raga Music, though from Afghanistan. Now we will post for a longer period classical Indian music. First we start with some LPs and cassettes of instrumental music.

Here the first one: a quite rare LP released later also as a CD in France. Both were not widely distributed. See here an LP released in 1985 in the same series which we posted in May 2018.

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Ustad Sarahang - Live in Kabul 1978

Here a very beautiful concert recording by Ustad Sarahang containing:

Raga Malkauns (incomplete) (25:54)

Raga Todi (46:30)

We received these recordings from our friend Werner Durand. Many thanks to him.

It seems that these recordings are from two different concerts: the first Raga is a midnight Raga, whereas the second one is a late morning Raga. Also the second track has Sarangi accompaniment, which the first doesn't have. The first Raga is incomplete and ends abruptly. To make it more smooth we created a short fade out.

In the 1990s and early 2000s there were many CDs by him available in the Afghani shops. They were released inside the Afghan community, mainly in the US. Amongst these CDs were also some with a classical Raga program in Khayal format. Maybe in the future we will post some of these, as they are no longer available for many years.

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Ustad Mohammad Hussain Khan - Sar-Auhang (Sarahang) - LP released in India in 1970

Here a wonderful LP by the great singer, recorded in India. At a recent visit to our friend KF we scanned the covers of the LP he has in his collection. The rips he made already years ago. Many thanks to him again for sharing a rare jewel.

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