Impressions on a recording heard at Chinmoy Khaladkar’s place, Delhi, November 25,

2006.
I heard today a ten minute piece of an old recording which Mr Khaladkar got
copied from an erstwhile prince, and is labeled Alladiya Khan. While, the authenticity of
the source and its reliability is thus confirmed, and consolidated by the fact that Mr
khaladkar, a supreme court lawyer, is in direct connection with more than one erstwhile
princes in the course of his work for them, and the fact that he has made sure that he got
the right recordings very carefully, the recording itself is baffling in more sense than one.

For one, we do not really know what was the gayaki of Alladiya Khan himself as it has
been often pointed out that his gayaki should not be understood as a sum total of his
student’s gayaki.

While a private recording of the great masters who did not record for the commercial
companies is in itself not so unusual, these recordings and their locations do not fit in
with the known biography and tours of the ustads. Hence a further research in the
biography and career of the musicians would be required to tie the looses ends.

Three, simply speaking, any such ‘unexpected’ example sounds too good to be true!

So I have chosen to be still skeptical, and insisted that one more confirmation (and one
more perhaps after that) may be required. One such confirmation can be from the too few
living veterans who have heard Alladiya Khan and whose memory is still intact. Efforts
are being made in that direction.

After this preamble, I will now note the impressions of this recordings. I insist that these
impressions must be seen as my ‘first’ impressions (I listened to the piece three times)
and in no way understood as my analysis or critique. I am also aware of the fact that I
may be ‘projecting’ some of my reading about Alladiya Khan’s gayaki as noted by
writers like Tembe or musicians like Mansurji.

The recording:
The raga is a variety of Todi, sounded like Bilaskhani todi in the poorvang. The uttarang
is difficult to decipher for me.

The Taal is Jhaptal, fairly paced in the piece that I heard.

There is sarangi for accompaniment, and no vocal support.

The words of the bandish were difficult to decipher but one word heard distinctly was
‘nirakaar’ ( I do not mean the word were uttered unclearly, I mean I did not pay close
attention to the words)

The pitch seemed not too low but not very high, and not strained.
The voice: well it sounded like that of Govindbua Shaligram, whose recording of bihagda
I have heard many times. ( I am aware that many sources have mentioned that Shaligram
in fact sounded like khansahab

Contrary to my prejudice of a ‘gruff’ voice this voice was infact quite mellow, though
perhaps not supple.

The effects
1 there was a lot of use of the upper sa, holding the note and very melodious small
patterns into the taar saptak almost sounding like the effect in Abdul karim khan
recordings, or call it Rehmat khan recordings if you will. (the temptation to call this
Mubarak Ali khan is being suppressed here!)

There were distinct patches where the singer reached the upper sa in fast paced straight
taan and followed it up with the avrohan in half laya, in patterns of three or four notes
with pauses interspersed regularly. ( I spoke about this to my father Shripad Bhirdikar
and he remembered a simile Mansurji had uses to describe bade Khan Sahab’s taans, one
of them being ‘his taans were like a firework where the it sours straight up in the sky and
falls slowly as if flowers of fire, slowly”)

Three or four times the sum was reached after introducing a completely unexpected and
very fast short taan.

It was in general difficult for me to anticipate the sam in terms of hearing the culmination
of a ‘pattern”

My father also asked if I heard swaras embedded in gamak or anything to that effect as it
was another feature mentioned to him. I can not say anything on this issue at the moment.

So here I end my impressions and invite your comments on them.

Urmila Bhirdikar