Bilton - & Hamidullah - Vol. 1 - Cassette from Afghanistan

Afghan singer and musician Biltoon dies in Kabul

By ZABIHULLAH MOOSAKHAIL - Mon Nov 09 2015, 3:11 pm

Renowned Afghan singer and musician Biltoon who recorded around 1,000 songs in Pashto and Dari languages during career died in capital Kabul on Monday.

Ismael Saadat an Afghan journalist with BBC and fan of Ustad Biltoon says “Bilton was ruling hearts, his demise will certainly leave a huge void in the hearts of his fans and the Afghan folk music.”

Throughout his decades-long career, Ustad Biltoon recorded several songs for Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA). He was 22-year-old when he recorded his first song “Dil Man Za Amayat Para Para-Ka me Wakhli Khabar Ay Nigara”, a Dari Pashto mixed song, at RTA.

Ustad Biltoon was a talented singer who had memorized more than 200 songs most of which belonged to renowned poet Bahai Jan. Ustad Biltoon mainly had two instructors Ghulam Jailani (see our previous post) and Salam Logari. From Jailani he learnt to play the Rubab and Tanbur. 

Born, according to his relatives,  in 1913 (this can't be true; according to other infos he was in his 90s when he passed away. So his birth date was probably around 1923) in Chakri area of Kabul province, Ustad Biltoon was still a child when his parents died. After the demise of his parents, Ustad Biltoon whose original name was Momen Khan moved to Charkh District of Logar province and stayed most of his life there.

from: https://www.khaama.com/afghan-singer-and-musician-bilton-dies-in-kabul-4095/

I still don't know if it is proper to name this music Logari Music. Definitely it is a very fine folk music tradition played by professional musicians and it was very popular in Afghanistan. Hamidullah Charikari comes from the the same tradtion and they often performed together.

In the West never a CD was published by these excellent singers and musicians, or any by one of them or similar musicians of the same tradtion. I think this a missed chance. Now it is too late for well-known reasons. In a recording done in the West one could have insisted on leaving out the Harmonium. Then one would have had a beautiful recording of good singing with an ensemble of Rabab, Tambur, Sarinda and Dhol. The interaction between the musicians is always fascinating.

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Ostad Jilani - Robab Mehfil - Cassette from Afghanistan

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Ghulam Jailani

An outstanding rubab player in Kabul in the 1970s was Ghulam Jailani, one of the five musician sons of Ustad Nabi Gol. He had adopted a rather more Hindustani-like approach to the rubab, with greater use of the unfretted range, more dynamic variety, less repetition of the fixed composition, and more elaborate improvisations in comparison with other players, often using fast down-up stroke patterns. Unlike most other players he made little use of parandkari techniques, though he does frequently strum across all the sympathetic strings. He was sometimes criticised for playing the rubab too much like the Indian sarod, even though he did not use much in the way of sarod-like glissandi.

I met him in his family home in the Kharabat on 6 June 1976, when I had the opportunity to record him playing two long pieces, accompanied by tabla. At the time he told me he was influenced by the playing of sarod players such as Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, whom he had heard on the radio, record or cassette. The first piece he played for me was in Rag Gorahkalyan, accompanied by his brother Wali Nabizada on tabla. For this rag he used an alternative tuning, with the lower melody string tuned down from C# to B and the middle string tuned down from F# to E.

After an extended shakl the astai section starts 4'45'' in from the beginning of the piece and is in Ektal, a 12 matras cycle. At 6'59'' Jailani exclaims somewhat boastfully 'Up till now nobody has played an astai in Ektal.' In this astai there are long improvised rhythmic sections, but with no clearly defined naghma. The naghma-ye drut (fast naghma) begins at 10'44'' and is in Tintal. At 19'10'' he moves into the doubly fast naghma-ye drut drut. Only at this stage does he start using the sim-e barchak, in a way that hints at playing jhala on the sarod.

The second piece Jailani described as a thumri in Rag Pilu and is remarkable for its modulations from one rag to another. His brother Latif takes over on tabla. In the shakl he modulates to Rag Kafi and then back to Pilu. The astai starts at 3'40'' and is in Chanchar Tal, a rare metric cycle of 14 matras (Dha Dhin ¬– – Dha Dha Tin, Ta Tin – – Dha Dha Dhin). In this astai section Jailani modulates through a series of rags in ragmala style before returning to Pilu. After the recording Jailani identified these as Pardepki, Madhubanti, Bilawal, Bairami and Sultankauns, but Pardepki and Sultankauns are not to be found in the usual sangits (rag dictionaries). Further analysis is required. Here Jailani is showing off his knowledge of little-known rags and his skill in stringing them together. This kind of serial modulation is not common in Afghanistan. At 7'39'' he interpolates a short section in fast rhythm, then reverts back at 8'22'' to the slow Chanchar Tal. At 13'54'' the naghma-ye drut begins, and is in Tintal.

Jailani's innovative approach probably influenced the virtuoso styles of a younger generation of rubab players from the Kharabat, such as Homayun Sakhi and Khial Mohammed Saqizada.

John Baily

from: http://www.oart.eu/joomla/naghma-ye-klasik