Thursday, 12 April 2018

Zia Mohiuddin Dagar (1929-1990) - Raga Mangeyabushan - Re-release of an LP originally published in France in 1974


This LP was one of the greatest discoveries ever for me. I still remember vividly how I first saw the cover hanging in the window of a record shop in Cologne and discovered that it was a Rudra Veena recording. In effect, it was the very first Rudra Veena LP ever. I immediately bought the record. At home when I put the record on I was completely taken by the sheer beauty and majesty of the sound of the instrument and the exquisite musicianship of the artist. For many years it was my favourite record and till today it always kept a very special place in my collection. The LP I bought then was the first edition (see its cover below), but when the second edition was published a couple of years later I bought that one too, as I wanted to make sure never to be without this recording, if ever the first LP got damaged. I sold the first one when I had to reduce my collection as I had planned then to move to New York, which finally never happened.
An alternate take of this recording was published in 2001 on CD. According to the information given there the recording was done in Chembur, Mumbai, January 31, 1968. Also according to the information there the correct name of the Raga is Gangeyabushan. This CD can still be obtained on Discogs though the label doesn't exist anymore for quite some years.
We had recently posted a cassette from 1989 by the artist. More recordings will follow.

On the artist see:
On the website of Raga Records you can read the booklets to the two CDs by the artist: Raga 219 & Raga 222.







Here the cover of the first edition:


11 comments:

BT said...

Thank-you very much

Christopher Greaves said...

Thank you very much for this.

Joshua Michaell said...

This is amazing! I also have a copy of the first edition on lp. Magical!

Psikofobi said...

Teşekkürler...

Anonymous said...

Country & Eastern, the label that put out Raga Gangeyabushan, DOES exist. I just got a newsletter from them today!

Tawfiq said...

It was not Country & Eastern that released this CD, but Amigo and this label doesn't exist anymore for many years. See the link I provided at the word Discogs. Country % Eastern also still has some stock of the Amigo CDs.

Richard said...


Thank you for this!

I have the Country and Eastern CD in addition to an original LP. C+E have released several interesting recordings including several of their original recordings of public and house concerts by ZM Dagar. They have also, as you mentioned, reissued about 8 Amigo LPs on CD. A few years ago I was able to order the complete set. I loved their transfers and tasteful graphic design and decided to purchase another set as gifts but by that time they only had 6 of the CDs left in stock.

Rudra veena music is very special. There are some AMAZING uploads to YouTube of longer concerts of ZM Dagar -- most over an hour and some approaching two hours. The sound quality ranges from (rarely) pretty bad to (most of them) excellent.

As always thank you for your efforts. The time and thought you put into your blog is appreciated by many many more people than those who have the ability or inclination to comment.

Tawfiq said...

Here you can see a beautiful video:
http://ncaa.gov.in/repository/search/displaySearchRecordPreview/ICCR-361-UM#collapseOne

On first of june two new albums by the artist will be published as Doeble LPs, CDs and downloads:
http://editionsmego.com/release/SOMA029
http://editionsmego.com/release/SOMA029

Anonymous said...

Raga Gangeyabushan was recorded by Bengt Berger. Country & Eastern is his label, and the CD is still available from him. BTW, the reason that the original take (the one released as Rage Mageyabushan, and the one you are providing the rip of) was not used for the CD was that he never got the tape back!

Tawfiq said...

I know, only that the CD was published by the label Amigo in 2001, to be precise. When Amigo was closed down, he took the whole stock of remaining CDs of classical Indian music. That is why one can get them partly still from his label Country & Eastern.

Unknown said...

Hi,
Since you obviously like Dhrupad here you might want to find out about our three new releases of quite unique material from the Dagars recorded 50 years ago. You find info about them at https://countryandeastern.se/three-unique-dhrupad-recordings-from-dagar-family/
Best
Bengt Berger, C&E