Amlan Das Gupta is a Professor of English, Jadavpur University, He has built an archive of North Indian classical music at the School of Cultural Texts and Records at Jadavpur University. He has also offered a course on the history of North Indian Classical Music. Education – University of Oxford.
Tags
John Barlow, Mustaque Ali Khan, Radio Recording, Cassettes, Venezuela, 1960’s
Language
English
Professor Amlan Dasgupta Speaks :
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Amlan Das Gupta is a Professor of English, Jadavpur University, He has built an archive of North Indian classical music at the School of Cultural Texts and Records at Jadavpur University. He has also offered a course on the history of North Indian Classical Music. Education – University of Oxford.
It must have been in 1974 or 75, when I first heard Vismadev Chattppadhyaya sing. I had heard him sing in gramophone records, we had some of his gramophone records at home, We heard long kind of stories about him. My teacher Sri Amarnath Dey had organized a programme at Balygunj Sikhsha Sadan, where he came. Always I was told that he was a very unpredictable singer that mean that mean what will he sing, or whether he would sing anything at all or just go away, no one could predict it at all. But he came and he sat quietly and he asked for lot of tea, I remember I went him caught the tea, and I think it was also ‘Paan’ that he requires so I was put in charge for looking after him for these things. There was Keramat Sahab, and there was Kesto Babu on the Harmonium. So he was sitting there and then he, I think he was playing the Harmonium himself. I also remember small thing when he took Keramat Khan Sahab’s Tabla and played then with Buddhadeb Dasgupta, So there were all kind of thinks that was happening. Then he went on to the stage and sang ‘Alap’ in ‘Malkauns’ and that is I think the really marvelous part of that programme. After that he sang ‘Khayal’ in ‘Malkauns’ then he sang ‘Drut khayal’ ‘Malkauns’, ‘Vilambit ‘ and ‘Drut’, and then he sang ‘Bhajan’, and stopped. After which I think people in the audience, whom he knew, you mean lot of people, there were lot of people there, lot of music lovers, who asked him to go on and say that you can’t leave us like this, and then he pulled the Harmonium towards himself and must have sang some eight or ten ‘Ragpradhan’ songs, That was really marvelous, really marvelous. Went on far beyond the time which we were booked the hall for, we were all standing there, pleading with the hall authorities to allow him to go on singing, saying something is happening which is so marvelous that, it will be really a great pity to, tragedy to stop it. So the thing is that the ‘Malkauns Alap’ I have never heard him before, after I heard him three times perhaps afterwards in ‘ Bango Sanskriti Sanmelam’ and also the programme that we have organized an year after. But he did’nt sing an ‘Alap’ , I never heard any recording later when I was sort of tried to look for the recordings of Vishmababu, I found a couple of ‘Vilambit Khayal’s but no live or recorded ‘Alap’. But that he had training and this was something which was remarked upon by all the artists present there was something that I thought was really marvelous because evidently he was talking about a kind of ‘Talim’ about on which we knew almost nothing.
Verbatim by Rajeswary Ganguly Banerjee
Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.
Note:- In this recording Jyoti Goho has referred to his Guru Pandit A.T.Kanan as Guruji. Here he has also mentioned A.N.Haksar (Ajit Narain Haksar) as a Director of ITC Sangeet Research Academy. Actually Mr. A.N. Haksar was the Chairman of ITC Sangeet Research Academy – Editor
It was around 1975, Banga Sanskriti Sammelan was held in Kolkata maidan. My family had a great relation with Vismadeb Chattopadhyay and we went to listen to his performance, I was quite young then. On the first day of performance he started to sing and then stopped. He said, he was not in a mood to perform. He set aside his harmonium and left the stage. It was a different time the whole audience was silent. Nobody raised a voice, I can remember only some people sighed with the words that it’s a pity we couldn’t hear him. The organisers were very repentant and they promised a performance in near future in that particular conference. At the last day of the conference, we heard that Vismadeb babu’s performance was on the list. It was a whole night programme and Vismadeb Chattopadhyay was the last performer. We listened the programme whole night and Nikhil Banerjee had performed raga Sudhbasantm prior to Vishmadev.
I heard this from my father, he was inside the greenroom
Pt. Nikhil Banerjee
Vismadev Chattopadhyay listened to Nikhil Banerjee’s recital, staring blankly at the sky, he asked once, ‘it’s Nikhil, isn’t it’. But then again, he was silent. After that he took stage and sang something for a while. I don’t remember the exact raga, but he again stopped suddenly and said, ‘I am not in a mood to sing even today’. Everyone anticipated the repetition of the last days show. But to everyone’s surprise he pulled the harmonium close to his lap as he often did and started to play. I didn’t remember the raga he played but it was mesmerising. It was an out worldly experience. I still remember the beauty of his recital flowing through the audience. And it was the last of the programme because nothing could surpass it.
The well-known sitar player Sanjay Guha is now serving as a faculty member at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, London. He learnt music from a number of highly reputed musicians including Pt. Radhika Mohan Moitra, Pt. Deepak Chaudhury and Vidwan M. Balamurali Krishna.
Tags
Shyamal Bose, 70, Dover Lane Music Conference, Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan, Abhogi Kanada
Language
Bengali
Sanjay Guha speaks :
Metadata generated by Suranjita Paul
Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.
The well-known sitar player Sanjoy Guha is now serving as a faculty member at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, London. He learnt music from a number of highly reputed musicians including Pt. Radhika Mohan Moitra, Pt. Deepak Chaudhury and Vidwan M. Balamurali Krishna.
Tags
Satyabrata Guha, Balaram Pathak, Sitar, Pahari Sanyal, Debika SAnyal, Usha Ranjan Bandyapadhyay, Vocal, Himubabu, Studnt, Kashim Bazar Rajbari, 1972, 1973, Rabindra Sadan, Amir Khan, Nikhil Banerjee, Saoni Kalyan, 73, 74, Swapan Chowdhury, Sarala Memorial Hall, Gokhel College, Jnan Prakash Ghosh, Hiru Babu, Radhika Mohan Moitra, Keshav Chandra Bandyopadhyay, Tabla
The Sarod of Amjad Ali khan, Ganga was made by my father in 1969.
Sri Hemendra Chandra Sen
My father, Sri Hemendra Chandra Sen passed away in 2010 and we were doing his last rites on 14th January suddenly Amjad sahaab’s secretary called. He informed us that his Sarod was broken by an air flight from Ahmedabad to Bombay and we had to fix it. So we asked him to send it to us. He had a performance in Dover Lane Music Conference on 25th January. So we had a tight time frame. We got it the next day and fixed it within a week. When I delivered it to him he hugged it tightly, he loved his instrument so much. He played it in Dover lane and remembered my father and praised us lovingly. Afterwards this same Sarod got missing in British Airways and found again. He loves it so much that he plays it in every programme till today, never let it go.
Kolkata residence of Dr. Rajib Chakraborty, Swinhoe Street, Kolkata 700019
About Dr. Rajeeb Chakraborty
Dr. Rajeeb Chakraborty is a renowned Sarod player, a music composer, and also involved in a large number of experimental projects internationally. He received several awards for his experimental work in music.
Tags
Radio, 1975, 1974, 1960, Television, National Programme, Tuesday night Concert, 1970, Listener, Classical music, Compile, Compere, Artists, 1978, Tape Recorder, Record Player
Language
Bengali
Dr. Rajeeb Chakraborty speaks :
Metadata is generated by Suranjita Paul
Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.
Kolkata residence of Dr. Rajib Chakraborty, Swinhoe Street, Kolkata 700019
About Dr. Rajeeb Chakraborty
Dr. Rajeeb Chakraborty is a renowned Sarod player, a music composer, and also involved in a large number of experimental projects internationally. He received several awards for his experimental work in music.
Tags
Ravi Chakraborty, Riyaz, Inspiration
Language
Bengali
Dr. Rajeeb Chakraborty speaks :
Metadata is generated by Suranjita Paul
Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.
