Ustad Ali Akbar Khan - Signature Series Vol. 1, 3 ragas

Dans le prolongement toujours des 24 heures de raga, voici un autre artiste que j'apprécie beaucoup également : Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Dans cet enregistrement, les ragas sont très différents de ceux qu'on trouve sur l'album de Amjad Ali Khan et je trouve que le musicien aux tabla est bien meilleur.

Voici le texte en anglais uniquement du livret de ce CD :

“Ustad Ail Akbar Khan was born in 1922 in the village of Shivpur, Bangladesh. He was trained in music by his father, the late Padma Vibhusan Acharya Allaudin Khan, who is acknowledged as the greatest figure in North Indian music in this century. When he was three, his studies began with vocal music and a variety of other instruments with his father. He also studied drums with his uncle Fakir Aftabuddinsahib. Later, his father, deciding his son should concentrate on sarod, set a training and practice schedule of 18 hours a day. This continued for over 20 years. In i955 Yehudi Menuhin requested Khansahib (as he is called) to visit the United States where he performed at the Museum of Modem Art. At that time he made the first Western LP recording and the first United television performance of IndianClassical Music on Allistair Cooke’s ‘Omnibus’. Khansahib has received many awards including two Grammy Nominations, the “President of India Award” “Padma Bhusan” and most recently in 1988 the highly prestigious “Padma Vibhusan”. This is the highest honor presented to a civilian in India. Ali Akbar Khan is an exceptional composer, recording artist and teacher. This combination, along with an extensive list of accomplishments, has earned him the respect of his peers and the love and devotion of his audiences and students around the world. In 1965, Khansahib started teaching in America. By 1967 he had opened the Ali Akbar College off Music in San Rafael, California where over six thousand students have passed through its doors.There he continues in the tradition of his father to teach from his vast wealth of knowledge the pure style of the Baba Allauddin Gharana of Maihar.

The sarod, named sarod dhayak-vina in Sanskrit,was invented by Bharat Muni. In the early l6th Century it was known as the sarood, which means melody, in the Persian language. Gulam Ali Khan, court musician of King Wazid Ali Shah, made the first changes to the sarod. Padma-Vibhusan Acharya Baba Allauddin Khan (Ustad Ali Akbar Khan father) and Ustad Ayet Ali Khan (his uncle) modified the present shape of the sarod, which is over one-hundred years old. Through his performances and teachings. Ustad Ahi Akbar Khan continues to spread the knowhedge of the sarod throughout the world. The sarod is hand carved from a single block of sea soned toon or teak wood. The fingerboard is a smooth, fretless, steeh plate. The belly is covered with a goat skin, and it is here that one of the main deerhorn bridges rests, whihe the other is on the neck before the main strings. The present sarod has 25 metal strings of different gauges with 4 main strings carrying the melody. Tuned to the principal notes of the raga are 4 jawari strings, while 2 chikari strings are tuned to the tonic and used for drone and rhythm.The remaining 15 strings known as the taraf provide sympathetic resonance and are tuned to the scale of the raga.The right hand holds a plectrum, or java (made from a coconut shell), whihe the left hand uses the finger tips. The nails produce the slide or the sustained ghissando sound.

PANDIT NAHAPURUSH MISRA(1932-1987)

Tabla accompaniment was provided by the late Pandit Maha purush Misra. His high spirited playing offered a perfect balance to the Ustad and has given us a musical legacy which has been greatly loved and appreciated.

The tabla is a term applied to a pair of Indian drums; however, in usage, the right-hand wooden drum alone is referred to as tabla, whereas the left-hand copper drum is the banya. The tabla is tuned to the tonic of the solo instrument or vocalist; the banya produces the bass sound. The drummer uses all parts of the hand: tips and sides of the fingers, the palm and heel.The tabla are perhaps the most popular Indian drums used for accompaniment and solo performances.

The tanpura is a four, five, or six-stringed instrument with a long wooden neck and gourd base. It is played throughout a performance with its rich tone providing a constant drone.

Rag Chandranandan Virtualiy synonymous with the name Ali Akbar Khan, this rag was composed one evening rather hastily in a recording session early in his career and released on a 3-minute 78rpm disc. He then spent three years learning the rag from the recording. It combines four Kaushi ragas : Nandakauns, Chandrakauns, Malkauns and and Kausi—Kanara. The result is a powerful rag whose atmosphere “is of looking out into the universe on a full moon night” The name of the rag means “the playin of the full moon”. The rich and dark sonorities of the late night ragas make the sarod resound in its middle and low registers—a perfect marriage of composer, instrument and music.

Rag Gauri Manjari “In our history there was no rag using all twelve notes of the scale. Khansahib’s Gauri Manjari was an experiment born of curiosity which employed eleven notes exciuding the lowered third, komal ga. It was only possible to keep these notes so that the right mood of the rag could be conveyed : its mood is devotion, tinged with pathos, and filled with chamatkar - the marvelous surprise of new and different turns of melody and sudden appearances of unexpected notes. “In this rag you show all of the forms of Mother Kali and her power'’ The recording is alap only, without tabla accompaniment.

Rag Jogiya Kalingra Jogiya and Kalingra are two morning ragas which are joined together to create a single rag. One of the unique features of the rag combination is the beauty of the flatted seventh degree, komal ni, and the way it is approached from below in a curved pattern. A similar approach to the third degree (shuddh ga) is sometimes mirrored in the lower tetrachord. The mood is devotion mixed with pathos, and the time is very early in the morning, before the sun appears.”