Ecstatic Fiddle: Pandit V.G. Jog

Pandit V.G. Jog

I came across the music of Pandit V.G. Jog through my father who had several LPs of his in our rather humble family record collection.  Jog, along with Bhimsen Joshi and Pannalal Ghosh were the holy trinity of Indian classical music growing up. In fact, they were the only three Hindustani classical musicians I knew, and over the years I fell under the sway of their playing and singing.

Vishnu Govind Jog, or simply V.G., was the man who more than any other made the Western violin a beloved and natural sounding member of the Hindustani musical orchestra.  A Marathi by birth, Jog lived most of his life in Calcutta that great eastern metropolis of culture and art.  His pedigree is burnished with some brief periods of study with the greatest of all modern Indian music pedagogues, Allaudin Khan, but the bulk of his training as a violinist came from V. Shastry and Dr. S.N. Ratanjarkar.  He received his Master’s degree in music from Lucknow where he remained for some time as an instructor himself. Groomed in the Gwalior, Agra and Bakhle styles, Pandit Jog's virtuosity, mastery of ragas and an uncanny realisation of space and time in the construction and knowledge of rhythm are his hallmarks. At a very young age, he rubbed shoulders with all time greats at the Bhatkhande College of Music, Lucknow, in the 1930s—the first great attempt at institutionalizing traditional music instruction. (Wikipedia)

Panditji travelled extensively around the world and performed in some of the great concert halls in the US and Europe including Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center.  In the late 1990’s he developed Parkinson’s disease which made it increasingly difficult for him to play his beloved violin.  He passed away in Calcutta in 2004 after attaining almost all the high civilian honors of his country and those in the South Asian region.

This is a cassette I purchased in his home city of Calcutta many years ago and is one of my favorite. His treatment, especially, of Raga Kirwani, is spectacular. He does, truly, manage to make waves of ecstasy on both these selections.

         Track Listing:

         01 Raga Shyam Kalyan

         02 Raga Kirwani

here

The Greatest of Them All: Ustad Vilayat Ali Khan

During their lifetimes, Ustad Vilayat Ali Khan and Pandit Ravi Shankar, were regarded as the two ‘best’ sitar players in India.  Fans and critics divided into ‘Vilayat’ and ‘Ravi’ camps, each extolling the greater brilliance of their respective icons. The media fired popular imagination by painting them as intractable rivals, each dismissive of the other.  That they were both accomplished musicians is beyond doubt but, in actuality, they enjoyed a personal friendship that was cordial and respectful despite comments like this by Vilayat Khan sahib: “Ravi Shankar has popularised India’s music all over the world at the cost of his music.”

Ustad Vilayat Ali Khan came from a well established and highly regarded musical pedigree that traced its origins to Hindu Rajputs who converted to Islam in the Mughal period and eventually settled in the humid greenery of Bengal.  Trained as a singer, and indeed wanting more than anything to be a vocalist, Vilayat Khan settled on sitar to maintain the family tradition. His grandfather, Ustad Imdad Khan, was an icon of the sitar who had an entire gharana, Imdadkhani, named after him. Inayat Khan, Vilayat’s father had also scaled the highest rungs of fame on the sitar as well. So, there ultimately, was no other choice for young Vilayat.

You would never know that the sitar was his ‘second choice’ because what characterised Ustad Vilayat Khan’s reputation was a total devotion to the instrument. He was a purist. The raga was a sacred thing; almost a being.  It was not to be trivialized or corrupted by the introduction of rouge or foreign sensibilities.  This puritanical stance, was at heart, what separated him from his great peer, Ravi Shankar.  Ustad Vilayat Khan sahib could never have hung out with the Beatles, or tried to fuse Western classical music, let alone jazz with the raga.

Throughout his life he did travel extensively overseas and indeed, he was one of the earliest Indian musicians to gain an international following.  But he never strayed from what he understood to be the essential and only way of playing, which was a way of incredible beauty and articulation. As Ken Hunt reported when Ustadji passed away in 2004, “Khan's forte was classical interpretation in the old improvised style of spontaneous composition. His trademark melodicism was imbued with emotion and passion. His skill for finding intellectual solutions to unlocking a raga's heart, especially with unexpected melodic twists, kept rasikas (music connoisseurs) glued to his every note and phrase. His speciality was gayaki ang (singing style), in which the sitar replicates and replaces the human voice.”

Tonight, I’m really pleased to present a recently released recording of Ustad Vilayat Ali Khan from India’s National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) archives.  He plays a stunning hour long version of raga Bilaskhani Todi, a morning raga.  It is said that this raga was created by Bilas Khan, son of Miyan Tansen. Bilas Khan is said to have created raga Bilaskhani Todi after Tansen's death; an interesting legend of this improvisation (it differs only in detail from Tansen's Todi), has it that Bilas composed it while grief-stricken at the wake itself, and that Tansen's corpse moved one hand in approval of the new melody. (Wikipedia)

            Track Listing:

01.   Raga Bilaskhani Todi

02.   Raga Sindhu Kafi

here

Sizzling Beach Music: 400% Dynamite

Down here, Down Under, we have just gone through 9 successive days of temperatures above 30c and the body is weary. Restless nights, sticky afternoons and biting, morning heat on your shoulders. A long way from John Denver’s ever so twee mid-70’s smash hit, Sunshine on My Shoulders.

We went down the coast on Monday, which was a public holiday, and spent the day at the beach.  The waves coming in from the Southern Ocean were brisk, regular and just the right size for body surfing.  I didn’t get out for hours.  

I was planning to post this set of music called 400% Dynamite upon our return but have only now come out of the sun drenched stupor.  Tis a fine collection of ska, rock steady and dub from Jamaica by way of the gentle souls of SoulJazz Records.  

Perfect beach music!

Track Listing:

01 Chairman of the Board [Bongo Herman]

02 Ring The Alarm Quick [Tenor Saw & Buju Banton]

03 Girl, Why Don't You Answer [Prince Buster]

04 Under Me Sensi [Barrington Levy]

05 We Are Not The Same [Cimarons]

06 Cuss Cuss [Lloyd Robinson]

08 Dreader Than Dread [Honey Boy Martin]

09 Cassius Clay [Denis Alcapone]

10 54-46 Was My Number [Toots and the Maytals]

11 Pot Cover [General Degree] 

12 Who's That Lady? [Paris Collection]

13 Hi Life [Granville Williams Orchestra]

14 Soul Food [Lyn Tait]

15 Stick Together [U-Roy]

here

Of Prophets and Disciples: Bill 'Ravi' Harris and Chitti Babu

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the two shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth.

[Rudyard Kipling]

Say what you will about the imperialistic, macho poetry of the British Raj’s great apologist, but buried within the sentiment, faux-chivalry and smugness lay some cracking lyrics. The one that opens tonight’s post is not necessarily the best of Kipling’s nuggets but it is, arguably, the most widely quoted.

And in some weird way it encapsulates the purpose of this early, hot, autumn Friday evening post. East and West try to meet. Two strong men (with their retinues of Prophets and Disciples) stand face to face, ready to do battle. Not with sabres or bandooks but armed with sitar and veena.  

The Washerman’s Dog will leave to you to pronounce judgment whether either of these men have been able to prove Kipling wrong and blend East and West.

Bill ‘Ravi’ Harris has a day job. He produces very groovy R&B records for the likes of Sharon Jones and the Daptones on his Daptone Records label. As a teenager Gabriel Roth (Bill’s day-job name) had two loves: James Brown and the sitar.  The combination was bound to end in trouble one day. And that day resulted in a weirdly wonderful recording called, not unexpectedly, Funky Sitar Man. With a couple of Hindu erotic sculptures (could be from Khajuraho) swinging their hips on the cover, Harris gets encouragement for his sitar-funk curry from a couple of Prophets: Mike Wagner on bass and on drums, Philippe Lehman.

The record covers songs by Harris’s hero James Brown, The JBs and a very cool version of the original Afro-funk hit, Soul Makossa.  I’ve heard many attempts to fuse the sitar with Western music but never did I think I’d be tapping my foot to Sex Machine!  

Sounds like a novelty and I suppose in some sense, the record is. Certainly, its a bit of personal indulgence; Harris is having fun for sure.  But put all that aside, the music is good. While he’s no Ravi Shankar, his sitar playing is not at all bad, and with the Prophets providing a funky rhythm, the overall sound is very much worth repeated listens.

Funky is not a word normally associated with the ancient Indian instrument, the veena. But Telegu musician, Chitti Babu, is certainly nothing if not cheeky. Famous for being one of India’s most talented veena players, he also had a knack for making records with wild, rather contextually inappropriate covers.  Indeed, it was the cover of tonight’s second record that attracted me to the music of Chitti Babu. Looking like a rural playboy, lounging in his very own ‘love den’, his voluptuous veena nestles next to him like his darling lover.

The record is called The Musings of a Musician and is performed by Chitti Babu and His Disciples.  In English that sounds hubristic. Even Messianic. But in Indian English and coming from a recognized master of classical music, the serious-looking men on the back cover, are indeed disciples. The structure and tradition of Indian classical music, Hindustani  or Carnatic, is built around the relationship between the Pandit/Ustad (master) and the shishya/shagird (student) which over many years of association takes on the tone and tenor of discipleship.

The music (and clearly, the cover, too) is aimed at a Western audience.  Side 1 is fairly straightforward-a medley of several ragas.  But Side 2 is a frank bid to make music along non-Indian lines.  With titles like Rendevouz and Fairy Tale the tracks are truncated and never really get off the ground.  But that being said, the record is worth listening to for its audacity and creative vision.  India had rock bands and jazz bands that played music that was immediately recognizable as ‘rock’ or ‘jazz’. It was jazz that just happened to be played by Indians.  But this record is one of the few made by purely classical Indian musicians (Ravi Shankar, and L. Subramaniam, being the most notable) who tried to make  Western, or Western-themed music with traditional Indian instruments.  And for that Chitti Babu deserves to be recognised.

So, two strong men, from the ends of the Earth, refuse to buy into Kipling’s fatalistic vision. One tries to recreate his beloved sexy soul music on a foreign sitar. The other uses his native instrument to make music that foreigners can dig.  

Wah! Cool!

Track Listing (Bill ‘Ravi’ Harris)
01 Path Of The Blazing Sarong
02 Gimme Some More /Hotpants Medley
03 Soul Makossa
04 I Dream Of Gina
05 Ravi's Thing
06 Cissy Strutt
07 Look A Py Py
08 Lost Dragon Of The Sahara
09 Pass the Peas /Sex Machine Medley
10 Funky Sitar Man
11 Same Beat
12 Escapism
here

Track Listing (Chitti Babu)
01 Raga
02 Rendevouz
03 Old Memories
04 Fairy Tale
05 Rhapsody
06 Royal Salute
07 Solitude
here

Down Under Roots: The Joelenes and The Bayou Brothers

There are many differences between the United States and Australia.  Our continental land masses are pretty much the same size but down here the 5000 kilometers of space is peppered with the population of New York State.  Venture too far off the dusty red track out in the middle and you’ll be pretty much on your own until you get to the Pearly Gates (or the other place, which, considering where you’ve just come from, might be an actual improvement).

We have kangaroos. Americans have skunks. Both are pests. We both share poisonous snakes that hide out in rocky mountains, though our mountains are pretty wimpy compared to the Rockies.  Both countries have indigenous people they have abused, neglected and then tried to ‘assimilate’ for their supposed greater good.  Australian Aborigines, however, have been living here since 38,000 BCE. 

We both play football with oblong balls of leather, but Aussie men snicker at all those padded up gladiators in the NFL. Our ‘footy’ players wear shorts and knee high socks and that’s about it.   You’ve got baseball. We’ve got cricket. But we get the idea of hitting a fastly-tossed hard ball with a wood bat.

We have similar breakfast cereals. You say Rice Krispies. We say Rice Bubbles. Our Cheerios have sugar on them. Your’s don’t.  And we don’t even know what Grapenuts are.

In the realm of music we both love roots or alt-country music.  We are slightly embarrassed by Keith Urban (though are sort of proud of him, too) and bristle when it assumes he’s all there is to Aussie country music.

Tonight the Washerman’s Dog shares a couple of small local bands who ply their trade in bars and pubs around the country, drubbing up enough to pay rent and get to the next gig. 

From the badlands of Brunswick (a suburb of Melbourne) and the seaside skulduggery of St Kilda (another burb), alt-country five-piece The Joelenes bring you their full-length album: Cool Hand Lucille. This 10-track collection of original songs is a celebration of love, loss, public transport (trams in particular), and the ability to keep on truckin’ even when life seems hell-bent on bringing you down.

The Joelenes unique and powerful sound is shaped by four-part harmonies, acoustic guitars, harmonica licks, keys, mandolin, stripped-back drums and dirty bass – it’s a little bit rootsy, a little bit bar-room stomper, a little bit bluesy and a whole lotta alt-country.

The female-fronted line-up features: Rosina ‘slingshot’ Gannon (guitar/vocals), Nina ‘howlin’ Rousseau (harmonica/vocals/guitar), Joanna ‘Rainman’ Flemming(keys/vocals/guitar/mandolin), Hadley ‘big daddy’ Agrez (bass) and Chris ‘boom chicka’ den Brave (drums/washboard).

Thus, does the band, The Joelenes (not to be confused with the English female bluegrass band,The Jolenes) describe itself.

 **

Hailing from the other side of the continent come The Bayou Brothers. Combining their traditional blues influences with rockabilly, manic hillbilly, gospel, country and folk, in a style that the Brothers fondly refer to as Deliverance meets the Delta, the group is comprised of founding members Andrew Morgan & Richard Woollett and multi-instrumentalist Dave Clarke and Victorian double bass player Ben "Bendigo" Gibbon.

Happy listening!

Track Listing (Joelenes)

01 Pass The Wine

02 Mary & Pat

03 Stuart Highway

04 Song For Patrick

05 Some Consolation

06 Stay On Board

07 The River

08 Begun

09 The Tram Song

10 Dead Man's Cigarette

11 Bonus Party Track

here

Track Listing: (Bayou Brothers)

01 Green River

02 Drop Down Mama

03 The Exercise Yard

04 Wayfaring Stranger

05 Everything Tastes Better When It’s Fried

06 Lord, I'm Coming to Heaven

07 Ramblin' Man

08 Takes A Lot to Laugh, Takes a Train to Cry

09 Like a Bird

here

Sunrise Raga: Ustad Ali Akbar Khan (fresh link)

Ustad Ali Akbar Khan was apparently hailed as ‘the world’s greatest musician’ by the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who was responsible for introducing the genius of the sarod to Western audiences in the 1950s. 

The son of influential Hindustani musician Allaudin Khan, Ali Akbar Khan was one of the Eastern world's greatest musicians. A master of the sarod, a 25-stringed, lute-like, Indian instrument, Khan brought the Northern Indian classical music to the international stage. A five-time Grammy nominee, Khan was called, by Yehudi Menuhin, "an absolute genius, the greatest musician in the world." Tracing his ancestral roots to Mian Tansen, a 16th century musician in the court of Emperor Akbar, Khan began studying music at the age of three. Initially studying vocal music with his father, he studied drums with his uncle, Fakir Aftabuddin. Although he tried playing a wide variety of instruments, he felt most comfortable on the sarod. Training and practicing 18 hours a day, he slowly mastered the instrument. In 1936, he made his public debut during a concert in Allahabad. In the early '40s, Khan became a court musician for the Maharaja of Jodhpur. He soon acquired the title "Ustad" (master musician).

In 1955, Khan accepted an invitation from Menuhin to perform in the United States. In addition to performing at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he recorded the first Western album of Indian classical music and became the first Indian music on an American television when he appeared on Alistair Cooke's Omnibus. In 1971, Khan performed with his brother-in-law, Ravi Shankar, during George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden. Khan received numerous awards including the President of India Award in 1963, the Padma Vibhusan in 1988, the Bill Graham Lifetime Achievement award in 1993, and the Asian Paints Shiromani Hall of Fame Award in 1997. He received the Kalidas Sanman from the Madya Pradesh Academy of Music And Fine Arts and became the first Indian musician to be awarded a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" in 1991. Khan received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts in 1997.

In 1956, Khan founded the Ali Akbar Khan College of Music in Calcutta. Teaching in the United States since 1965, he opened the Ali Akbar College of Music in Berkeley, CA, two years later. (In 1968, the school moved to a new site in San Rafael.) Khan taught six classes a week for nine months a year. In the early '90s, the school opened branches in Fremont, CA, and Basel, Switzerland. The lengthy list of films featuring Khan's music includes Chetan Anand's Aandhiyan, Satyajit Ray's Devi, and Bernardo Bertolucci's Little Buddha. He received a Best Musician of the Year award for his soundtrack for the film Khudita Pashan. (AMG)

I am away from home and exhausted; so this short introduction will suffice for now. Tonight’s record is from 1977 and highlights one of the Ustad’s own compositions, raga malayam. Based on several morning ragas the name refers to those of his mother (Malaya) and father (Alam).

A lovely recording to play on Sunday (or any) morning.

Track Listing;

1. Raga Malayam (Alap)
2. Raga Malayam (Gat, Vilambhit, Drut)

here