Continuing with our tribute to Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, the music on today's show was special. We started the hour with an All India Radio archival recording by Khansahib, followed by a beautiful piece by Pandit Nikhil Bannerjee, someone that Khansahib has played a lot with. What made the show special today was the last piece, one in which both these legends played together.
Here's the playlist:
1. Ustad Ali Akbar Khan (sarod) - Raag Darbari (All India Radio Archival Recordings, Vol 7)
2. Pandit Nikhil Bannerjee (sitar) - Raag Sohini
3. Ustad Ali Akbar Khan & Pandit Nikhil Bannerjee - Raag Mishra Mand
Each week, you can listen to the current week's show here:
And the previous week's show here:
Here are some interesting quotes by and about the late Ustad Ali Akbar Khan:
(source: http://dkvblog.sulekha.com/blog/post/2009/06/alvida-ustad-ali-akbar-khan-1922-2009.htm)
"..an absolute genius, the greatest musician in the world "
- Yehudi Menuhin describing Ustad Ali Akbar Khan when he met him in 1952
"If you practise for 10 years, you may begin to please yourself. After 20 years you may become a performer and please the audience. After 30 years you may please even your guru. But you must practise for many more years before you finally become a true artist – then you may please even God."
- Ustad Ali Akbar Khan
"When I heard the news it was like losing Ray Charles, or John Coltrane, or Charlie Parker, you know. There probably couldn't be two-three musicians like him in the world."
- Rock Guitarist Derek Trucks paying tribute to Ustad Ali Akbar Khan
"I started to learn this music at the same time I began to talk. So it is as natural to me as speaking. It's not something I have to think about any more than I have to think about the words I'm saying."
- Ustad Ali Akbar Khan talking to Don Heckman of The Times
"I teach what I learned from my father. The same system, with the same traditional purity. The same kind of devotion, the same love for music has to be built up. And that can only happen when it comes from the heart. Otherwise, music doesn't last. It doesn't stay."
- Ustad Ali Akbar Khan in conversation with The Times
"When I came in '55, because I was in Indian dress, people on the street in New York came out of the bars and shops and followed us. They asked me, 'Who are you? Where are you from?' When I said, 'India,' some of them didn't even know where it was. Or others who knew I was a musician asked funny questions like, 'How can you play music in India with all the tigers and snakes and monkeys you have to fight off?' "
- Ustad Ali Akbar Khan in conversation with the Asian Week as quoted in The Washington Times
"All the people who studied there - it changed all our lives. Khan embodies the pure spirit of music; it's not just the notes, it's the spirit. Every time I listen to him, he takes me there."
- Mickey Hart, drummer with Grateful Dead talking of learning music under the Ustad as quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle
Karan Mehra
Gharana MusicWREK Atlanta, 91.1 FM
Mondays, 8-9 p.m.
www.wrek.org
(+1) 404-894-2468
Email: gharanamusicatlanta@gmail.com
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