Thursday, January 7, 2010

57th Sawai: Pt. Jasraj (Vocal)

Main artist: Pt. Jasraj
Sangat:
Tabla: Satyajit Talwalkar
Mridangam: Parthasarathy
Harmonium: Mukund Petkar
Tanpura (vocal): Ratan Mohan Sharma, Ankita Joshi and many others

Panditji began his performance with raga Jog (vilambit Ektal - piya
ghara na, madhyalaya Teental - tum bin kaise kate din ratiya). This
was followed by a raga that sounded like Bahar with both gandhars -
with shuddha being prominent - to me (eri ma sakal banat ghan -
madhyalaya Teental). Could this be some kanada?
After this Panditji sang Adana (mata kalika - Addha Teentaal). This
was followed by Basant (aur raga sab bane barati dulha raga Basant).

While overall this was not a bad performance it was clearly not Panditji's best.

Towards the end of 2nd raga there was some interesting Tabla-Mridangam
jugalbandi.

Good night!

- Bansuriwala

--
Sent from my mobile device

3 comments:

  1. I was pleasantly surprised by Jasraj: while his voice was shaky (especially in the oft-attempted mandra saptak), he eschewed most of his usual excesses and gave a performance that gave glimpses of the greatness that used to be. His kharja attempts were sad, to say the least - I wish he had stuck to his normal pitch where his voice was sounding really good.
    -Abhay

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  2. "eri maa sakal ban gagan" is labelled as Khamaj Bahar on the LP release where I first heard it by Jasraj. Come to think of it, he was the only artiste - at least on day 1 - who didn't announce the names of the raaga-s he sang.

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  3. Abhay - Thanks for the comments. Thanks also for filling in the raga of the 2nd piece Panditji sang - Khamaj Bahar.

    I agree with you about Pt. Jasraj's performance. There were many glimpses of his greatness and the beauty of his voice. I had enjoyed his performance during the last Sawai a bit more. Unfortunately the quality of his students who provide on stage sangat continues to be sub par.

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