Arunabha Deb’s profile is nice, and it captures the same feeling that we had when we listened to him first a couple of years ago:
First-time listeners share a common confusion: a man in his fifties, singing as well as any other reigning maestro of the day, but relatively unknown. Why hadn’t they heard him as an upcoming star?
Take a look!
A musical antidote to regional chauvinism:
It was around 1930. In Pune, the cultural capital of Maharashtra, a play was being performed. An actor came on stage and began to sing in a unique voice. There was a commotion amongst the spectators, and someone called out: “Kaanadi appa” (a derogatory term used for Kannadigas in Maharashtra). Others picked up the cry. The accompanying instruments stopped playing. The actor came to the front of the stage, and said: “You are showing this intolerance because I am from the Kannada desh. Show me someone amongst you who can sing as well as I do, and I will engage him in a contest.” Having said this, he sat down for a baithak. He sang for a good three to four hours. The spectators fell silent. As the man finished singing, garland after garland was heaped around his neck. Everyone began to praise his display of erudition. The actor who conquered Marathi intolerance with the light of his knowledge was Sawai Gandharva.
From Tejaswini Niranjana’s Music in the balance: Language, modernity and Hindustani sangeet in Dharwad at EPW. A must-read!
There are more interesting stories too — like the one about Pt. Mallikarjun Mansur and Ustad. Bade Gulam Ali Khan (which also involves Ustad Alladiya Khan) and the role of chillies in promoting Hindustani music in Dharwad. Have fun!
Money and fame can be impediments to innovation!
Von Freeman always considered his relative obscurity — which lasted nearly until the final years of his career, when the world started to recognize his genius — a blessing. It enabled him to forge an extremely unusual but instantly recognizable sound, to pursue off-center musical ideas that were not likely to be welcomed in the commercial marketplace.
“They said I played out of tune, played a lot of wrong notes, a lot of weird ideas,” Freeman told the Tribune in 1992. “But it didn’t matter, because I didn’t have to worry about the money — I wasn’t making (hardly) any. I didn’t have to worry about fame — I didn’t have any. I was free.”
Freeman used that freedom from commercial pressures to pursue a music that was as unorthodox as it was intellectually demanding, as idiosyncratic as it was deeply autobiographical. In this sense, he represented the quintessential jazz musician, forging a musical voice that was unique to him, an art that was influential but ultimately inimitable.
From here; link via Fabiorojas.
Yes; that is the one I am looking for for quite sometime now! Vijay Siva mentions it here:
One of my concerts of patriotic songs during the 50th year of Independence was released as an album. And the album cover has me wearing a Gandhi cap!
But the album is elusive!
NB: Any pointers will be appreciated!
The most pleasing musical chords have simple mathematical relationships between the different sound frequencies within them, but the source of this perception is mysterious. A recent mathematical model suggests that the key may be the rhythmically consistent firing of neurons in response to a harmonious pair of frequencies. Now the researchers who developed the model report 2 September in Physical Review Letters that they have quantified the effect by calculating the information content of their model’s neural signals and showed that it increases for tone pairs that are more pleasant sounding. The model may also provide insights into other sensations besides hearing.
From here; do read the whole piece. It is short, lucid and also contains some nice pointers to other reading material towards the end, if you are so inclined.
Today, I listened to Vishwanath Parasuram‘s concert (Prof. Shankar memorial concert); nearly two and a half hours of uninterrupted Carnatic music, and loved it!
ArunN has written a response to N Ram following Ram’s speeches and writings about the thin-skinned-ness of Carnatic musicians; I loved this part, especially:
The ploy employed by N. Ram, looking together his earlier speech and the above response to TMK, goes like this: First, you provoke someone by proclaiming in public something like “that guy is not nice you know; he will get provoked for any silly thing I say about him” and when that guy comes out “hey, that is a silly thing you are saying about me”, you get back at him by looking at the crowd and hollering, “see, see, I told you so, right?”.
In any case, my respect for Hindu as a newspaper and Ram as a journalist have been going down; this is just yet another point on the curve.
Even musical instruments become extinct, and in not so far in the past:
The Tirupamburam lineage traces its ancestry to a vocalist – Amritakavi Kuppiah Pillai, who had learnt music from Muthutandavar. His son Aiyan Pillai followed in his father’s footsteps but grandson Sesha Pillai became an exponent of the Saranda, a now extinct musical instrument.
Next was Swaminatha Pillai, who, born in 1840, chose to become a nagaswaram artist. His son Natarajasundaram, born in 1869, followed in his father’s footsteps and with his brother Sivasubramania Pillai, formed the first nagaswaram duo. Natarajasundaram Pillai is today better remembered for being the first to publish in the Tamil script Muthuswami Dikshitar kritis with notation.
Given the array of musical choice, it was perhaps no wonder that Natarajasundaram Pillai’s elder son Swaminatha Pillai chose a new line – that of a flautist. It was left to his brothers to continue the nagaswaram tradition.
Is here; he draws the attention to the influence of medieval poets on Bhimsen’s music and also makes the point that Bhimsen’s music can be meditative (ruminative is the word that Guha uses).
There is also a reference to one of my favourite musicians — Venkatesh Kumar — in Guha’s piece. And, it is time I located some Puttaraj Gavai.
I have heard Bhimsen sing soulful Devaranamas, while Mallikarjun’s renditions of Basaveshwara vachanas are moving; but, as far as I remember, I never heard Bhimsen sing vacahnas nor Mansur sing Devaranamas. So, I was surprised to see Ram Guha mentioning that Mansur liked to sing Purandaradasa’s songs.
