Ram Chatur Mallick (1902-1990) - Chant Dhrupad & Dhamar - LP published in France in 1977

Up to now we presented in our Dhrupad Series only members of the Dagar family. Now we turn to some other Dhrupad traditions, first to the one from Darbhanga.

I still remember very vividly how happy and surprised I was when this LP was released. For the first time one was able to hear a completely different Dhrupad tradition. This was a very strong and robust style compared to the one by the Dagars. I loved it immediately. Later, in the 1990s, I was able to visit many concerts by later masters of this Gharana, namely Vidur Mallik and Premkumar Mallik. These singers were so enthousiastic and energetic. It was always a great experience to see them in concert. It was Peter Pannke who brought these musicians reguarly to Germany and Europe and produced quite a number of fantastic CDs by them, first of Ram Chatur Mallik, then by other members of the Mallik family.

But this LP preceded all the work of Peter Pannke. Around the same time I discovered the LP, released in India, by Siyaram Tiwari, another great master of the Darbhanga Gharana, which we posted in 2011. These two LPs were for quite a while amongst my favourite LPs and I still like them very much.

Ram Chatur Mallik was the great old master of the Darbhanga Gharana. The German author, journalist, composer, musician, ethnomusicologist and producer Peter Pannke produced in the early 1980s broadcasts by Ram Chatur Mallik and other singers of the Darbhanga Gharana, recorded at the Dhrupad Samaroh in Vrindaban, India, in 1982. Out of these recordings later a number of CDs were published: first in 1988 the fantastic CD by Ram Chatur Mallik - The King of Dhrupad (unfortunately no longer available for many years) and later a number of other CDs by other members of the family like Vidur Mallik and his sons Ram Kumar Mallik and Prem Kumar Mallik.

Peter Pannke made also a whole series of recordings by Ram Chatur Mallik in 1984/5 in Vrindaban which he released in 2002 as two boxes of 6 CDs each in a very limited edition of only around 35 copies. There were attempts to make them available more widely but unfortunately it never happened.

Next we will post a cassette of AIR recordings by Ram Chatur Mallik, some recordings by Siyaram Tiwari and a number of recordings by the excellent Abhay Narayan Mallik, the disciple and successor of Ram Chatur Mallik, who always gave vocal support to his master during concerts and recordings.

On the artist see:

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

http://www.dhrupadmusic.org/darbhanga.html

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/S/bo15701317.html

https://www.amazon.com/King-Dhrupad-Pandit-Ramchatur-Mallick/dp/8184573332

On the Darbhanga Gharana see:

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

https://sreenivasaraos.com/tag/dhrupad/

http://www.paperbackswap.com/Dharbanga-Tradition-Drupada-Selina-Thielemann/book/8186569014/

http://www.itcsra.org/Gharana-Details.aspx?SubId=26&GharanaId=37&Type=B

On Peter Pannke see:

https://www.india-instruments.de/peter-pannke-tagore-preis.html

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Ustad Rahimuddin Dagar - Raga Shudh Sarang & Ustad Sayeeduddin Dagar - Compositions in Ragas Kedar & Malkauns

Yesterday Raagam, the internet radio of All India Radio, which broadcasts 24 hours a day 7 days a week classical Indian music, had a Dhrupad program with Ustads Rahimuddin Dagar and Sayeeduddin Dagar. 

Raga Shudh Sarang by Ustad Rahimuddin Dagar (1902-1976) was wrongly announced as being by Dagar Bandhu (Dagar Brothers). But it is performed by the great Rahimuddin Dagar, probably with vocal support by his son Fahimuddin Dagar (1927-2011). Another great performance by the great master.

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This program was preceded by a performance of some Dhrupad compositions by Ustad Sayeeduddin Dagar (1939-2017): 

Raga Kedar - Dhrupad & Dhamar

Raga Malkauns - Dhrupad

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For Raagam see:

http://www.airbengaluru.com/cue-sheets/raagam-2/

http://allindiaradio.gov.in/Default.aspx

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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