Ali Akbar Khan (Picture courtesy: http://www.ammp.com/)
Ustad Ali Akbar Khan's demise brings back memories of my only meeting with him at San Anselmo, California in 2001. He was already close to 80 by then and had nothing left to prove his manifest musical genius. My interview was for a television series that I was working on but could not complete.
Khan had the anchored demeanor of all great artists, particularly musicians. Even if I discounted the leisurely, almost contemplative demeanor that comes with old age, Khan had a remarkably measured pace about him. I was aware of his reputation as someone bereft of the exhibitionism of his equally illustrious brother-in-law Ravi Shankar but not quite sure the extent of it. If you met him on a stroll on the leafy lanes of San Anselmo you would not suspect a single musical note in his body language.
I was told by those who know much more about Indian classical music in general and Khan's brilliance in particular had told me to ask him to play just one note on his sarod. They told me Khan's single had more depth than what many lesser musicians in the genre had in their entire career. I told him about that reputation and almost made him cringe with embarrassment. Yielding to my persistence that comes with being an ignoramus, Khan did precisely that. That note still resonates in my mind.
Khan reminded me of another legendary Khan I had met in 1993 in Faislabad in Pakistan. Divine qawwal Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan had a similar demeanor. More about the two Khans later.
Anoop Desai is not quite Jamal Malik from ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ who ducks real and metaphorical feces flung at him by life and emerges a winner. The 22-year-old has enjoyed a sheltered existence in Chapel Hill North Carolina typical of Indian immigrants.
However, his trajectory on American Idol has some of the emotional feel of the fictional Malik’s success on the fictional ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ in the fictional ‘Slumdog Millionaire.’
After being singed by the studiedly acerbic Simon Cowell who had said last week that Desai should not have survived in the contest, the young singer transformed himself with Willie Nelson’s classic ‘Always on my mind.” On the face of it Desai and country singing would seem as far apart as Desai and any singing at all but he performed with intuitive ease. So much so that Cowell chose to recant his earlier comment in keeping with the contrived theatricality of the show.
With Tuesday night’s performance Desai is bound to go quite far unless destiny and biased voting trip him. The only trouble with Desai is that he has the stage presence of a shoe but then when you look at many of the great singers in their early careers they too would seem quite devoid of charisma. By no means would I call myself familiar with country music or for that matter most of the pop, rock, hip-hop, reggae or any other genres. But I can tell a good performance when I hear one.
Can Anoop Desai win American idol? Could Jamal Malik win ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” One is real life and the other is fiction. But then who knows?
I am not sure how call filtering at American Idol works. I wonder whether call center employees in India can take advantage of their US caller ID and rig the whole thing. Probably not.
Hear Willie Nelson here.
On a Monday morning when half the world is feverishly occupied with challenges of survival this professional hack has music on his mind. I just picked up this smooth, melodious 1970 number from ‘Safar’, composed with obvious ease by Kalyanji Anandji and sung by the always enchanting Lata Mangeshkar. You can be forgiven for thinking that I really have nothing else to do other than hunt for these numbers on YouTube. I don’t.
Don’t miss the little plugs for Kwality ice cream at 41 seconds and Bush transistors at 2.36.
To think that the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) would team up with Sonu Nigam for a concert titled Rafi Resurrected in London and perform songs such as “Hum tumse juda hoke mar jayenge ro ro ke” sounds absurdly improbable. That’s exactly what happened recently in London. The 1965 song was composed by the underrated Usha Khanna and written by Asad Bhopali.
The concert to commemorate Mohammad Rafi, widely regarded as the greatest male playback singer of India (there are equal numbers who accord that status to Kishore Kumar but that’s that), was broadcast on Sony television. The CBSO musicians did an exceptional job of internalizing the spirit of the wide variety of songs that Nigam sang. The songs lend themselves so well to western orchestration even though the mood of most was anything but.
For instance, the 1967 song ‘Patthar ke sanam tujhe humne’ composed by Laxmikant Pyarelal and written by the always outstanding Majrooh Sultanpuri is hard to picture in a western orchestral situation. But then there is the 1968 ‘Kaun hai jo sapnon mei aya’ from ‘Jhuk Gaya Asman’, composed by Shankar Jaikishan and written by Hasrat Jaipuri that lends itself so well. I found the 1949 classic ‘Suhani raat dhal chuki’ composed by the great Naushad for the movie ‘Dulari’ and written by Shakeel Badayuni particularly arresting. Try the 1975 Punjabi number ‘Main jatt yamla pagla’ from ‘Pratigya’ composed by Laxmikant Pyarelal and written by Anand Bakshi. You would think it practically impossible to render that number in a symphonic framework. Think again.
I also loved the 1963 song 'Yaad na jaye' from 'Dil ek mandir' composed by Shankar Jaikishan and written by the master Shailendra.
The showstopper has to be "Tum jo mil gaye ho' from 'Hanste Zakhm' (1973) composed by the unputdownable Madan Mohan with lyrics by the great Kaifi Azmi.
For sheer variety check out these links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2cckhYq_2E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH-cHVFbpkM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlrm8OjEGlY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlrm8OjEGlY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuHRtP3ZDXY
Hindi movies songs, especially from the 1940s to the 1960s, grip me to the exclusion of any other worthwhile activity. But then on a Sunday morning with overcast skies in Chicagoland, is there anything more worthwhile than impulsively wanting to listen to a random gem? At least, not for me. This one dropped like a pure drop of dew for no fathomable reason.
I was hoping against hope that someone had the good sense to upload it on YouTube. Sure enough, someone has.
It is from the 1965 movie ‘Aakashdeep’ with music by Chitragupt, who composed for at least 25 movies in the 1950s and 1960s.
I have written about this separately but it does not cease to amaze me how the fusion of the Internet, digital technology and Google’s complex search algorithm bridges the passage of 43 years in no time at all. Would Chitragupt have ever imagined while he was composing this song in 1965 that someone sitting in a painfully suburban American town of Naperville would play it 43 years hence on a pure impulse?
I hope you enjoy the song written by the redoubtable Majrooh Sultanpuri. There is a line in the song that goes ‘Pyar armanon ka dar khatkaye’ (Love knocking at the door of desires). Effortless, charming and even brilliant.
Here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M127dQ3K2BA
Change is Good
