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Good cheer and f lirtation
ANJANA RAJAN
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Ustad Amjad Ali Khan talks about his latest album of Christmas songs.
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"Gharana or no, no music is worth disrespecting."
Photo: Sandeep Saxena
New vistas Ustad Amjad Ali Khan in New Delhi.
Hearing the merry strains of “Jingle Bells” is commonplace in this season. Emanating from a closed door within the premises of the India Habitat Centre, however, is “Jingle Bells” with a difference. There are meends of Hindust
ani music being coaxed out of the instrument, and then there is a whole variation on the theme, jhala style. And then the sarod — for sarod it is — gets back to the ‘sthayi’, “Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle All the Way…” It is the unflappable maestro, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, whose latest project is an album of Christmas carols and hymns, recently launched by Times Music.
The album’s name, Breaking Barriers, is reminiscent of the various clashes such a work is intended to heal. One of course is the continuing violence and growing hatred across the world. In playing popular music associated with a festival such as Christmas, the ustad is extending his best wishes to people everywhere. But another barrier he is known to hobnob with is that between classical and popular music. The album, arranged and programmed by Stephen Devassy, has received its share of bouquets and bouncers. But the charming maestro disarms any opposition when he calls his work a “flirtation” between different musical genres.
Change in music
It is not an accidental analogy. “All over the world, people are losing interest very soon with the same kind of companionship. It begins from there,” he says. “Nobody, by and large, is happy with a long relationship. It applies to any relationship. Human beings feel much happier and secure with pets, because they can’t talk. Human beings have totally lost the tolerance to adjust for a long period of time. Similarly, there is a change in music too.”
Many still appreciate the works of great masters of classical music, both of India and the West, he points out. “But people who have lost peace of mind, are mentally disturbed, are always looking for change.”
This general loss of equilibrium has resulted in a profusion of musical genres, he feels, and in the “excessive” prevalence of collaborative efforts and fusion music. Musicians, as part of humanity, may also be looking for change. Besides, they realise “that audiences are happier to hear this kind of music.”
By calling his work a flirtation, he is not deprecating it. “Any collaboration is a musical flirtation. You can enjoy it but it is a temporary enjoyment. It cannot become a gharana.”
Gharana or no, he emphasises that “no music is worth disrespecting.” Besides, Hindustani music did not have a tradition of songs with lyrics, like Carnatic music with its huge body of kritis by a range of composers. So, while these Christmas songs and other experiments he has tried down the years — songs for children, “Vaishnava Jan To”, among others — are not new, they have broken new ground for the sarod, which was a “hardcore” instrument of classical Hindustani music.
Right in his youth, when warned by his father and guru, Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan, that the sarod being a fretless instrument was difficult to play, he took the warning as a challenge. “I wanted to sing through my sarod.” The first song he took up as a challenge was one that was popular at the time, “Come September”.
All that is history. Come Christmas, and Amjad Ali Khan’s sarod sings of Jesus and the timeless values of devotion and love.
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
|
