Vilayat Khan - Sitar Samrat - Raga Gawoti - Cassette released in India in 1986

Here another very beautiful cassette by Ustad Vilayat Khan. The second side was republished on a compilation CD: Aftaab-e-Sitar (1988). The complete recording was on CD 4 of a box of five CDs: The Best of Ustad Vilayat Khan Ever (2012).

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Vilayat Khan - Sandhi Prakash - Raga Purvi - Cassette released in India in 1991

Here a very beautiful, but little known recording by the exquisite Ustad Vilayat Khan. As far as I know the recording was only once rereleased on CD: on CD 2 of a compilation box of three CDs called "The Great Heritage".

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Mohammad Sharif Khan Poonchwalay - Sitar - Vol. 3 - Cassette released in Pakistan in 1988

Mohammad Sharif Khan Poonchwalay was one of the greatest Sitar players of his generation. We posted in the past already six recordings by the artist. Unfortunately I have only the vol. 3 of this series of three cassettes.

Side 1:

1. Raga Bhairavi

2. Mishra Khamaj

Side 2:

Raga Basant Bahar

From the logic of the music probably the two sides should be reversed.

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Nikhil Banerjee - In Concert - Raga Hem Bihag - Cassette released in India in 1986

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Nikhil Banerjee - Le Sitar du Pandit Nikhil Banerjee - Raga Jogiya-Kalingada - LP released in France in 1983

With the last three posts by Ustad Sarahang we arrived back to Raga Music, though from Afghanistan. Now we will post for a longer period classical Indian music. First we start with some LPs and cassettes of instrumental music.

Here the first one: a quite rare LP released later also as a CD in France. Both were not widely distributed. See here an LP released in 1985 in the same series which we posted in May 2018.

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Ravi Shankar - Music from India Series - Vol. 8 - Raga Nata Bhairav & Raga Mishra Piloo - LP published in 1968 in UK

Here we post another beautiful LP by Ravi Shankar, also from the Music from India Series. The recordings sound as if they were recorded in the same recording session as the LP we posted before. This also was, since I bought it in the early 1970s, one of my favourite Ravi Shankar LPs. The Mishra Piloo is such a beautiful and amazing piece of music!

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Ravi Shankar - Music from India - Raga Khamaj & Raga Lalit - LP published in 1967 in India and UK

Here one of my favourite Ravi Shankar LPs. It was published first in UK in 1967 as volume 4 of the Music of India Series. Our version was released the same year in India.

  

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Nikhil Banerjee - Le Sitar du Pandit Nikhil Banerjee - Raga Patdeep - LP published in France in 1985

Here we present a quite rare LP by Nikhil Banerjee. The same recordings were also released on CD in 1988. Both editions were not widely distributed and only for a quite short period available.

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Nikhil Banerjee - Shriram Shankarlal Music Festival - Copy of a rare CD published in India

The Shriram Shankarlal Music Festival in Delhi is one of the oldest festivals of classical Indian music in India. Many of the concerts the visitors of the festival can later buy as a CD, produced by the festival itself. These CDs can only be bought during the festival and are often sold out quite fast. There is no other way to obtain them. That is the reason why they are very rare and very little known. 

Here we present exceptionally a rare CD by Nikhil Banerjee published by the festival. In the future we might post some more of these CDs, but this one is the only one by Nikhil Banerjee we have. Since quite a number of years this CD or any others by Nikhil Banerjee are no longer offered for sale at the festival. Our friend KF made for us a copy of the CD he had bought years ago at the festival. Many thanks to him.

1. Raga Darbari (46:19)

2. Raga Kirvani (24:54)

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Mushtaq Ali Khan (1911-1989) - Sitar Recital - Recording (1964) from the archives of AIR released on cassette in India in 1990

Mushtaq Ali Khan was an outstanding and highly regarded sitar player in mid 20th century, who represented an old style untouched by all the innovations of the new generation of instrumentalists coming up in the 1950s, like Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, Vilayat Khan and Nikhil Banerjee. He belonged to the Senia Gharana going back to Mian Tansen.

On the artist see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushtaq_Ali_Khan

http://prateekchaudhuri.com/ustadmustaq.htm

http://raga.hu/en/jaipur-senia-gharana-2/

http://ragascape.com/History/

http://ragascape.com/Archive/index.html

We found this cassette in the early 1990s in Little India in Manhattan, NY. Little India is really very little, just a couple of Indian shops on Lexington Avenue and another street crossing it. There were back then two shops who had Indian cassettes and CDs. 

This cassette was published originally as an LP in 1989. Our blogger friend Bolingo posted the LP in 2011, but only in mp3 format. That is why we offer here the cassette both in flac and mp3 format.

We had posted in 2014 another cassette by the artist.

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Debu Chaudhuri - The Lyricism in Sitar - Cassette released in India in 1987

Here a beautiful cassette by Debu Chaudhuri, a disciple of the great Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan of Senia Gharana. These masters of the Senia Gharana play an old style rarely heard today.

In the past we had posted two LPs by the artist.

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Sharmistha Sen - Sitar - Cassette released in India in 1993

Sharmistha Sen learned from Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan of the Senia Gharana and his student Debu Chauduri. As far as I know there are only two CDs by her, one released in the US and one in India.

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Budhaditya Mukherjee - Sitar & Surbahar Recital - Cassette released in India in 1988

Here a beautiful cassette by the well known Sitar master. In the past we posted already three LPs by him. See here. 

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Cassettes coming from India have often certain shortcomings. Sometimes it is in the recording itself (like here), but more often in the manufactoring.

Chandrashekhar Naringrekar - Sitar & Surbahar - Music beyond Words - Cassette released in India in 1980

We take now a little break from our Dhrupad Series - as this might get a little too heavy for a number of visitors of this blog - with some cassettes of instrumental music. We start here with a quite rare cassette by the great Surbahar and Sitar master Chandrashekhar Naringrekar, a student of the Rudra Veena master Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar. This cassettes is perfect as a transition from Dhrupad to instrumental music. We had posted another cassette by him in 2011. See here.

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Imrat Khan - Surbahar & Sitar - Music from India Series 10 - LP published in Great Britain in 1969

Here another LP from the Music from India Series, in which between 1965 and 1969 a number of beautiful recordings were released, which were at the time amongst the most easily available recordings of classical Indian music in Europe. Earlier EMI - His Master's Voice had already released a number of other LPs. We had posted recently two by Vilayat Khan from 1962 and 1963.

See here a complete discography of the Indian releases in the British ASD series: 

http://discog.piezoelektric.org/hmvindia/index.php?prefix=ASD

This our 7th LP by Imrat Khan.

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Vilayat Khan - The Genius of Vilayat Khan - LP published in India in 1962

Here our last LP - for now - by the great Vilayat Khan. The two Ragas are from the same recording sessions as the ones on the LP with Tilak Kamod and Bhairavi which was released in 1961. In effect it seems that there were two recording sessions, one with Mohammad Ahmad on Tabla and the other with Santa Prasad on Tabla. The Ahir Bhairav here and the Tilak Kamod on the LP from 1961 are with Mohammad Ahmad and the Khamaj on our LP here and the Bhairavi on the LP from 1961 are with Santa Prasad.

These two LPs are amongst the very first LPs of classical Indian music published by the Gramophone Company of India. The EALP series started with the number 1251 (Ravi Shankar & Ali Akbar Khan) in 1960.

See: http://discog.piezoelektric.org/hmvindia/index.php?prefix=EALP/EASD

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