Artist: Ustad Vilayat Khan
Album: Raga Bhairavi
Year: 1991
Line-up: Ustad Vilayat Khan - sitar
Label: Indian Archive Music
It occured to me one day that even
tough our blog has been up and running for eight months now we have
not yet written about any true Hindustani classical record. Surely, a
vast majority of aural explorers have gone the phase in their musical
lives where they have shown some kind of interest towards Indian
music. Be it through the hippie phase with a psychedelic flavor of
the Beatles or the spiritual and musical connections of Mahavishnu
Orchestra, there are many of us avid musicians and listeners who have
found at least at certain point of yours life the music of Indian
fascinating.
I am no exception. In my late teens, I
was overly captivated by Hindustani classical music. Going through my
own hippie phase when I was listening to artists such as Led
Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd I slowly started to moved
towards progressive rock and jazz fusion. I remember watching The
Monterey Pop and Woodstock festival documentaries over and over.
Altough I always marveled at the psychedelic guitar acrobatic freak
outs of Jimi Hendrix, the part which left the most bewildered and
overenthusiastic to pick up my guitar was the concert of the Indian
sitar maestro Ravi Shankar.
Ravi Shankar is without a doubt the
most well-known musician of Hindustani classical music around the
globe. When I was contacting the only sitar teacher in my neighbour
hood while I was seriously considering taking the sitar and Indian
classical music up, he advised me to listen to certain artists. One
of them was Ustad Vilayat Khan. Along with Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan
is one the most recognised sitar maestros of Indian. For some reason
the media and fans have for some reason set up Ravi Shankar and
Vilayat Khan as rivals but personally I do not see the reasoning
behind this. Like many of the professional Indian musicians, Vilayat
Khan was born in to musical family dating back to the 16th
century. Wanting to originally to be a singer it was however his
mother who saw more fit that Vilayat Khan was to bear the family
torch of sitar playing tradition. Thus, Vilayat Khan was taught from
very early on in the family style called Imdadkhani Gharana.
The master recorded for 65 years making
his catalogue almost impossible to go through in one lifetime. The
record which I bought (I think it might have been on a completely
random basis) is a recording of Raga Bhairavi. To aggravate, a raga
is ”the tonal framework for composition and improvisation in Indian
classical music”. The Bhairavi raga heard here is traditionally an
early morning raga. The scale resembles the Phrygian mode in the
western system of musical modes.One interesting notion to be made
with this record is that has no tablas (the Indian percussion) nor
does it have a drone provided by the tanpura. This is somewhat a
personal trademark of Vilayat Khan as he fills out the silences with
the strokes to the chikari strings in the sitar. I personally do not
have the competency to evaluate in great detail the performance of
Ustad Vilayat Khan on this record as Indian classical music is overly
complex to the uninitiated ears. What I understand, Vilayat Khan was
a traditional interpreter of these kinds of grand, basic ragas. He is
also undoubtedly a virtuoso of his instrument but here there is no
unnecessary showcase of the virtuosity to be found.
This record is a very pleasant and
soothing solo sitar record and if you are interested to broaden our
taste in Indian classical music, the musical stylings of Ustad Vilyat
Khan are the perfect place to start.
Considering the vast recording career
of Vilayat Khan I found it too time consuming trying to dig up an
audio sample from this particular record. Please enjoy another
performance of the same raga:
Written
by Παναγιωτιης
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