GS Sachdev, a flautist strongly associated with Ali Akbar Khan, has passed away. I own several of his LPs and hope to digitize them soon. Sachdev's playing showed a gravity and soulfulness which is often attempted but not always successfully by younger players... He had a very reserved, serious, and somber approach music and he will be missed.
I was at my favorite local record shop yesterday, glancing through the bins of used and new LPs when I spotted something quite unexpected:
It probably isn't obvious when looking at a picture, but it was certainly obvious when picking these up and holding them -- they are two quite hefty double-LP's released this month by a French record company. These performances have never been released in any form before.
The first LP is from a house concert in Seattle, Washington and the second recording comes from a performance at a university in Seattle about a week earlier. The sources for both of these records came from the archive of Dagar's family and students.
Here are the promotional notes -- I hope the label (whose website is here) won't mind me borrowing them:
Around ten years ago, deep into a cozy and hazy night following a concert with my sound brothers Daniel O'Sullivan and Kristoffer Rygg in London (as Æthenor), they graciously introduced me to a recording of rudra veena (a kind of noble deeper bass relative to the sitar, in a way) as performed by dhrupad master Zia Mohiuddin Dagar.
Dhrupad, for those who do not know, is a branch of Hindustani classical music said to "show the raga in its clearest and purest form". It's pacing concentrates heavily on the slow, contemplative alap section and works with specific microtonal gestures and deep characteristics of resonance ... in short I was hooked on this new (to me) and ancient form of music from the first listen, and feel that a more or less continual listening & reviewing of Zia Mohiuddin Dagar's recordings in the years that followed have influenced my own approach to music quite heavily (if, albeit, indirectly).
In early 2015 I was able to make contact with Zia Mohiuddin Dagar's son Bahauddin and some of his American students/disciples, primarily Jeff Lewis. Over time we developed a friendly and educational exchange, including access to a massive archive of recordings and developed these two paired titles for my label. It's been a long path to arrive at actually releasing them but also probably in many ways one of the most significant releases I've worked on. And I'm proud to be able to reveal these to date unreleased archival recordings of one of the masters of dhrupad, Z. M. Dagar, to the public for the first time.
Zia Mohiuddin Dagar was the nineteenth generation in a family tradition known as Dagar gharana, a rich lineage which continued and performed the musical form of dhrupad (Bahauddin Dagar continues the lineage as a master rudra veena dhrupad player of note today). Initially, dhrupad was a rigorous, austere, devotional genre that was sung in Hindu temples. But between the 16th and the 18th centuries, it became the preeminent genre in royal courts in North and Central India, and the Dagar gharana developed and continued publicly following the eventual loss of court patronage for dhrupad in the 19th century. The French ethnomusicologist Renaud Brizard covers the story of Zia Mohiuddin Dagar's life and teaching (a long story also in Seattle, my hometown!), the Dagar family and gharana, the rudra veena and more topics in an extensive set of liner notes in this release.
Raga Yaman was recorded at a public concert in Seattle at the HUB Ballroom at the University of Washington in March 1986 (the week after the accompanying release SOMA028 Ragas Abhogi & Vardhani was recorded) at the end of his last tour of the United States. Yaman was a special raga for Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, one of his signature raags. For centuries, Yaman has been considered as one of the most fundamental ragas in Hindustani music and is one of the first ragas which is taught to students. A deep knowledge of Yaman gives a key for understanding many other ragas. It's filled with tranquility, contemplation, pathos and spiritual yearning. .
-Stephen O'Malley, March 2018, Paris, France
And who is Steven O'Malley, you might be wondering. He is a guitarist best known for his "drone rock" group called Sunn O))) - pronounced "sun." He is originally from Seattle but currently lives in Paris.
I find it interesting how many musicians I meet who are performing in so-called Western traditions such as jazz or rock music, but who have a deep interest in Indian Classical Music. I personally know at least half a dozen musicians, including a film composer, several full-time jazz musicians and one violinist for a local symphony orchestra who are taking lessons in Indian rhythm. Those are just the people I happen to know by name in my city. There are other musicians whom I happen to talk to, who share with me their interest in Indian Classical. It always surprises me, each time.
Just a note about download links - none, this time. Go buy the LP or CD (easily available online from the usual suspects such as Amazon) or listen for free (with ads every few "songs") on Spotify, or enjoy the entire albums on the label's YouTube feed. The public concert is available as a multi-part video:
Here we have a delightful LP by the legendary bansuri maestro Pannalal Ghosh, uncle of a certain sitarist (and tabla maestro) who was recently featured in this space with several live performances. Hopefully, it will be the beginning of a series of transfers of LPs by Pannalal Ghosh as well as some other (at least three, possibly four) flautists both in his tradition and outside of it.
Nayan Ghosh: sitar Yogesh Samsi: tabla Excerpts from concerts in: Houston, Texas, USA on June 30, 2001 Austin, Texas, USA on July 01, 2001 soundboard (straight from the mixing board) recordings Total time: 79:14 minutes tracklist: 01 Raga Poorvi2001-07-01 (56:56) Alaap Composition in Vilambit (slow tempo) Composition in Drut (fast tempo) 02 Raga Sohini2001-06-30 (13:01) 03 Baul Song2001-06-30 (9:14)
Nayan Ghosh happens to be the nephew of legendary flautist Pannalal Ghosh. Of somewhat more interest is that he has a dual career as both a sitarist and a tabla player. The original seeder's notes (presented as a courtesy to the taper -- his opinions are his own):
--------------------------------- "Terms of use: These files are intended for non-commercial use for music lovers and may be freely traded or given away provided that (a) all the files including this one are included and (b) they are not converted to any lossy format such as mp3. Any commercial use is prohibited and will result in the copyright holder pursuing legal action against the violator(s). "Nayan Ghosh is one of the best amongst is his generation of sitar players that include Shahid Parvez Khan and Buddhaditya Mukherjee. Of the three, his playing is the most soulful and conveys a high-level of emotion. Indian music is based on playing vocal compositions. Pandit Ghosh learnt vocal and tabla from his father, Padmabhushan Pandit Nikhil Ghosh. "I am seeding a CD's worth of material that I listen to all the time consisting of material from Houston, TX (June 30, 2001) and Austin, TX (July 1, 2001). I had been after Pandit Ghosh for a long time to get me a quality recording of the last two pieces of this collection and in Houston he not only played them but gave an inspired performance. The first piece, presented in 3 movements, was a raga I had not heard him play before and has quickly become one of my favorites. Accompanying on tabla is Yogesh Samsi, a disciple of Taranath Rao (who taught at Cal Arts) and Alla Rakha who is Zakir Hussain's father). Please support the artist as he does tour the USA regularly and has several CDs out. Check out his CD on Raga Records (www.raga.com) which is available on Amazon or from Raga. SBD->DAT->Soundforge->CD-R->EAC->FLAC 8 w/align on sector boundaries Editing Notes: Because Indian music involves a lot of tuning and the pieces are each very long, I edit so that only the music remains to allow the most music to fit on each CD."
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Please note: the download link is now working correctly. Please see my note in the comments section for details. Here is the fifth live recording I am sharing this week -- I originally downloaded this from the Dimeadozen live music torrent site. Maybe one or two more live concerts before I return to the serious business of digital transfers. This is a long holiday weekend in the United States and I hope that there will be some time for me to devote to a few transfers. Probably after I clean out the garage!
Nayan Ghosh: sitar Parviz Ayan: tabla at the Kulturforum, Furth, Germany 2010-05-06 Excellent audience recording by Thomas Wulf using Soundman OKMII binaural microphones -- listen on headphones for a "you are there" experience. Mr Wulf also designed some lovely CD art if you like to make CDRs from these uploads. Total time: 119:50 minutes disc 1 (66:48 minutes) Tuning and intro (7:50) Rag Puriya Kalyan - Alap, Jod and Jhala (25:40) - Compositions in teentaal (26:33) Rag Kamod (6:35) disc 2 (53:04 minutes) Tuning and intro (2:47) Rag Charukeshi (19:55) Rag Khamaj(Thumri alap, Thumri, Dhun) (20:11) Rag Bhairavi(10:08)
original taper's notes: ------------------------------ "One of the most renowned musicians of Indian classical music came to play a wonderful concert this week. The region had been starving for this for years now.. "It was an amazing evening. His tone and lyrical moods touched our hearts and his virtuosity made quite an impression. He played one long rag with all the explorations and variations. In the second set he played two medium length ragas which were very lyrical and romatic imo. Both sets were concluded by two short ragas. "In his introduction the artist not only explained the structure of ragas in general and the special properties of the ones he played; he also mentioned how coming back to Germany after 25 years has a nostalgic feeling; it was here that he played his first concerts outside of India.. "He was accompanied by the Munich-based Afghan tabla virtuoso Parviz Ayan; the two had meet earlier that day for the first time and only played a little during the afternoon! Absolutely astonishing!! They were cautious, not to be in each other's way but their perfomance was flawless and very sweet. "The recording came out very good, I feel, but judge for yourselves! "As usual: share freely but never for money! "Covers and labels are included and the tracks are tagged. In time you will also find infos etc on my covers site at www.wulfware.de\covers "
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