72: what could have been

Would it have been like 1972, which boasted Apna Desh, Jawani Diwani, Mere Jeevan Saathi, Parichay and Seeta Aur Geeta among others? None featured in the nominations for Best Music at the Filmfare Awards for that year (conferred in 1973). Perhaps it is best to relish the music and pray that one discovers something new -- something in the arrangement, a forgotten unreleased version, outtakes, session recordings -- in all the soulful effervescent music he had produced. Time to go back and enjoy the complete version of one of my favourite RDB-Asha duets, sharaabii aa.Nkhe.n. As with a lot of his songs, I can't bear to watch what transpired on the screen (even though it's Helen, there's also Rakesh Roshan with that moustache and one of those funny mops). When will someone master this and toss it out on CD?

pancham: 17 years of a void

the flanger. the maadal tara.ng. the soda bottle. the school bell and the bucket. the metal reco-reco. niitaa. shabanam. the vocoder. nisha. sweetheart. monica. that primal scream. that guttural gravelly voice. the changing time signatures. the ambitious preludes. the energetic interludes. the polyphonic experiments with singers. The Guru of Groove lives on in his legacy: a kaleidoscope of melodies both deceptively simple and intricate along with arrangements both infectious and ostentatiously manic.

r d belafonte

On a whim I had checked out the first three volumes in the series Troubadours of the Folk Era from the public library. It was nice to hear San Francisco Bay Blues, Pete Seeger singing Turn! Turn! Turn!, Buffy Saint-Marie singing The Universal Soldier and the Brothers Four singing Greenfields. Two tracks after Greenfields had faded away, The Tarriers began belting out their hit version of The Banana Boat Song, which has been most famous as Harry Belafonte's signature song (arguably this is the song most popularly cited when people think of calypso). The melody was familiar, but the addition of Hill and Gully Rider was a nice touch. As I hummed along with them on Well, I sleep by sun and I work by moon, I suddenly realised that I had heard this melody before. It was in a Hindi film song that had interestingly blended lyrics addressing a boatman with the ambience of a dance number. Numerous articles about the song had called it a "cabaret boat" song although the video was evidence that the only thing on the minds of the filmmakers was a dance of the fisher folk (and hence the boatman was no longer an interesting device but a natural choice). The film was Bandhe Haath and the song was ओ माँझी (a transcription by yours truly appears here). The man behind the song was the late great Rahul Dev Burman. The a-ha! moment comes at the start of each a.ntaraa and continues till the turnaround. Wait for प्यार ओ माँझी तेरा झूठा है / मीत बनके तूने लूटा है / भरी दुनिया में अकेली हूँ / जान घायल दिल टूटा है at the 02:27 mark in the video and then for तू मेरा है मैंने सोचा था / यही सपना था निगाहों में / तू खिवैया होगा रे जीवन का / पार उतरूँगी तेरी बाहों में at the 04:21 mark.

elsewhere hereabouts: thoughts on the title song of the same film.

when he would have been 70

The late Rahul Dev Burman would have turned 70 today. Since he passed away in 1994, he has achieved the iconic status reserved only for those who pass from the world of the living to the world of the dead. He has his share of fans and detractors. He gets his share of criticism for all the "inspired" songs he made. There will be the occasional article, perhaps a new book or a new documentary about his music. One also hopes that efforts like the Panchammagic shows continue, if only in the hope that more people might find out why his work found a lot of praise, and fans and how his ouevre has influenced many.

There are so many examples in the work of the now separated Pandit brothers (notes about a recent discovery can be found here). There's that "Pancham" rhythm (hardly his invention, but something that shows up prominently in his work) showing up in songs (aaj ham ne dil kaa har from Sir). That isn't the only Anu Malik song that owes something to the late RDB. Consider paagal paagal from his non-film album Ho Raha Hai Sama, which sounds like it was composed while he was listening to raat krismas kii thii in a loop.

Meanwhile, it's a relief to know that there's always something new one can discover in the canon. Consider how the title track for The Train contains elements that showed up again in the title track for Trimurti (typical Bollyfare).

Excuse me, but it's time to go back and savour the joys of the little-heard title track of the Kumar Gaurav starrer Siyasat.

getting onto the bullet train again

When the experiment called The Bullet Train was released in 2003, I had posted an optimistic note of welcome. Years later, the CD still holds up on a few levels. It is still an interesting experiment -- a remix of tracks by the same music director -- a very special case of sampling, if you will. It also works as a mostly consistent peppy offering for the ears. Something that never struck me then seems rather obvious now. The remastering by Debashish Mohapatra at Pancham Studios is commendable, but it also exposes familiar problems with the original mastered tracks. The punch of the bass is weak on some; on others the sounds in the lower registers seem to have been stripped away. It's another reminder of the inconsistency of HMV's catalogue: consider how Pyar ka Mousum (1969) sounds older than Baharon ke Sapne (1967) on CD; consider the marvel of the combo CD Yaadon ki Baaraat/Hum Kisise Kum Naheen, on the other hand. It seems like a stroke of luck that the verve of each song made it over from the LP to the CD.

My doubts about the pathetic way companies like HMV mastered CDs from LPs got a shot in the arm when I got my hands on two spectacular compilations from the guys known as Bombay Beats, The Bombay Connection, Vol. 1: Funk From Bollywood Action Thrillers and Bombay Connection, Vol. 2: Bombshell Baby of Bombay. The lovely mix of the vocoder and the bass on the title track of The Burning Train sounded far stronger and fuller than any other version on CD that I had heard. The Bombay Beats guys had created CDs from LPs and their process fared far better than whatever the guys at HMV/GCIL had. The packaging was exquisite as well and it was evidence of more love for the pulpy excesses of Bollywood than anyone within the system could ever muster or design.

it makes me wonder

If I call you because I'm unable to connect to the Internet, why do you have automated messages telling me to go to your support website for troubleshooting tips? Is there a secret avenue to the Internet when those merry lights on the modem aren't blinking (a mainstream way of telling me that there's no way I'm getting online)?

Did Asha Bhosle sing any more kar le pyaar kar le songs besides one for Kalyanji-Anandji in Sachaa Jhutha (worried about that spelling? go sue the namers of the film) and the unofficially-tuned-by-RDB S D Burman song in Talaash? And that Talaash song seems to contain the seeds of mai.nne dil abhii diyaa nahii.n from The Train, the soundtrack that marked the entry into Bollywood of the music company formerly known as Polydor (it since became PolyGram which became MIL which became Universal).

How can you sleep at night by using a euphemism like rightsizing to describe a layoff? Even euphemisms should have their limits.

summer of quintus

While Bill Gates chalks off his last day at work at MSFT today, we mark another year without the baadashaah of the breathtakingly non sequitur musical interludes, the late great Rahul Dev Burman. Ironically, two recent Bollywood movie soundtracks sport a Panchamesque sprinkling or two.

De Taali marks another Vishal-Shekhar excursion into fun and aural adventure what with two versions of the title track (one dance floor-friendly and the other a sprightly crisp version meandering around the edge of an acoustic guitar riff), a blend of club and Rajasthani folk, a curiously arranged equation of self to a drop of rain and a gentle whimsy ballad of love that deliciously tosses in an English phrase as a punch. What stands out in the context of this post is the Anushka Manchanda/Shekhar Ravjiani duet hone lagii. It's playful like the mischievous Asha Bhosle songs the 70s and the rhythm pattern on the acoustic guitar says it all. This isn't an overt tribute like Jhankaar Beats, but it represents Vishal-Shekhar presenting a tribute to the late Pancham that retains a lot of their creative identity.

After the lushly energetic arrangements and strong melodies of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Ismail Darbar has evolved to becoming more famous now for his tiffs, temper and arrogant veneer. This might explain why the mention of Rasiya Sajan might draw a blank stare from a lot of people. One wonders if a similar fate is in store for his soundtrack for a film starring Ajay Devgan, Sanjay Dutt and Manisha Koirala (will this be the (Yeh) Majdhaar of the 21st century?). In a tragic case of irony, this clearly-germinating-in-the-cans celluloid sin shares its name with a standard Bollywood paean to reincarnation in 1976 that sported one of RDB's most famous songs and one of the best songs in Hindi film music based on raag shivara.njinii. One also fears that the songs will be reduced to smithereens once some hideous visuals are cut together to their melodic shifts and percussive cues. This would, ironically, be in keeping with tradition as far as some of RDB's finest compositions is concerned.

Reportedly, Darbar was channelling Laxmikant-Pyarelal in the soundtrack. The mixed bag includes dilarubaa, which stands out as a fine addition to the long list of songs peppering B-grade flicks like Shiva Ka Insaaf or Raat ke Saudagar as it runs Laxmikant-Pyarelal through a Nadeem-Shravan filter (although the end tosses a brass/drums cue that portends Rafi's voice opening o hasiinaa zulfo.nwaalii). kuchh kar lo boasts characteristic traces of Darbar in the refrains while Kwaabo.n kii raanii joins Anu Malik and Bappi Lahiri in stomping on Beethoven's grave as it recycles Für Elise before sending out musical quotes from Jatin-Lalit.

The most obvious blatant traces in the other songs, however, seem to suggest that the inspiration came from the talented Pancham. You can't miss the a-haa quote from chunarii sambhaal gorii in baabuujii. tuu merii mahabuubaa starts off threatening to sound like Ilayaraaja (or perhaps as Anand-Milind recycling the master), but as soon as the rhythm sets in, you know you're in Pancham land with a Jatin-Lalit wisp. That's ab ke saawan (Jaise ko Taisa) or, rather appropriately, a subset of the composite rhythm of mahabuubaa (Sholay). This brings us to achchhaa to mai.n chalataa huu.N, which is rich with slices from the master. Who would have known that it would take one flick destined to be DOA to revive a song from a flick long forgotten from years ago featuring the one and only Mithun Chakraborty in a double role? The similarity to merii aawaaz ke dosto.n from Aamne Samne is unmissable, although the rest of the mukha.Daa devolves into what sounds like the heavy punchy beat-backed bulk of The Nose's ouevre. It's a song that would fit well in a B-flick although the brass and the heavy vocal sighs bring back memories of Monica and her unnamed man cavorting to piyaa tuu ab to aajaa from Caravan.

the heart was a neighbour but it was the robe after all

A little less than two years ago, I happened to catch a recording of this TV programme from the day that R. D. Burman (aka Pancham) passed away. A point came when Gulzar spoke about his late friend. The feature cut to a rehearsal with Pancham on the harmonium, Asha to his right with a lyrics sheet, and Gulzar to his left. Pancham was guiding Asha along the tune for a couple of lines. I could make out a few fragments (jab bhii aa.Nkhon, aa.Nsuu bhar, log kuchh). A Google search yielded a song from Visaal, the 2001 collaboration between Gulzar and Ghulam Ali, jab bhii aa.Nkho.n me.n. For the Pancham version, the first two lines seemed to have been:

jab bhii aa.Nkho.n me.n aa.Nsuu bhar aaye
log kuchh Duubate nazar aaye

Reuse of lyrics isn't uncommon: Javed Akhtar reused a song (mai.n aur merii aawaaragii) from Duniya (1984) in Sangam, his 1996 collaboration with the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; Gulzar himself visited shaam se aa.Nkh me.n) several times (something that deserves a post of its own) including the famous collaboration with Pancham and Asha, Dil Padosi Hai.

Dil Padosi Hai was my first guess as I wondered what album the three might have been working on. Or perhaps (and the eyes of the Pancham fan within widened) it was another collaboration that never came to fruition. An email went out soliciting more insight. The timing was bad and there were no responses.

A year later, another email went out to more perceived fonts of information. The well of luck was dry on arrival.

In February 2008, the video fragment showed up on Youtube and a post went out on the Pancham Yahoo! Group. Hopes were rekindled and this time around luck didn't strike out. Pavan Jha, who owns and maintains the Gulzar portal, managed to dig up more: it turns out that the song was meant for Libaas. This interesting note comes shortly after rumours of that film finally making it out of the cans. Would the Lata-dominated soundtrack (with space for a duet each with Suresh Wadkar and the late music director himself) have featured just this sole Asha song or, perhaps, was the soundtrack destined, at some early stage in the development of the project, to be, as Ijaazat was, another solo Asha vehicle? The wordsmith must know more. One awaits more insight. Meanwhile, it's time to discover the sa.ngiit of the sultan of song yet again. ta ra ta ra ta ra ta ra ...

update [May 23, 2008]: The smoke clears further. A recent post on the Pancham Yahoo! Group offers more chocolate flakes on this cake, courtesy Gulzar himself. Apparently, during a recording session for Libaas, the "camera people" had arrived to shoot RDB composing a song. To humour them, the late great man asked the big G for a line and he obliged. A composition was born and he began guiding Asha along the melody. This means that the tune was never really for this film or for any another planned non-film collaboration. Now, who's got the rest of that footage?

resurgence of the robe

Buried near the end of a Subhash K Jha exploration of the Shabana Azmi/Smita Patil relationship with tidbits about Shabana Azmi taking the late Smita Patil's sun under her wings[sic] and her noting how much Chitrangda Singh echoes the late Smita Patil is a nugget about Gulzar's Libaas that, despite an impressive soundtrack by the late R. D. Burman and a strong cast, has languished in the cans for years:

Strangely, there's news that Gulzar's long-delayed film Libaas, which was made 20 years ago with Shabana and Smita's husband Raj Babbar, is finally going to be released. Libaas was one of the films Smita had accused Shabana of stealing from her.

14 years since pancham passed away

and the tributes and reminiscences seem have dwindled to a trickle. Over in Pune, the PanchamMagic guys have effected yet another wonderful tribute show. The drying puddle of skeletal articles offering little new in substance is offset by the announcement of Brahmanand Singh's labour of love: A film called Pancham Unmixed: Mujhe Chalte Jaana Hai that collects a host of people who lived and worked closely with the late music director and offers a thaalii of delectable memories, anecdotes and musically rich nostalgia. Some extracts can be relished in a CNN-IBN feature as well a longer fragment hosted by IndiaFM.

new contribution to the song of the fortnight: aayegaa mere sapano.n kaa raajaa / Kaun? Kaise?

{previous post in thread}

At long last, another new article of mine has surfaced on the Panchammagic Song of the Fortnight page:

aayegaa mere sapano.n kaa raajaa / film: Kaun? Kaise? (1983) / lyrics: Gulshan Bawra
In the prelude, Pancham builds up harmonies around a vocal refrain (pam-param-pam) in three sections, each containing two renditions of this refrain accompanied by a IV-V chord progression. The first section has the bass (in the lower register) and the female chorus (in the higher register) playing in octaves accompanied by arpeggios from an electric guitar with a flanger. Another female chorus line enters in the second section to provide a two-part harmony with the thirds. Asha is heard in the third section adding the final line for a three-part harmony with a two note fifth/third descending part. The last segment continues as electronic percussion and the hi-hat enter. A short phrase on the bass introduces the string section. A short run on the strings, accompanied by a tap on the cymbal, closes the prelude accompanied by a IV-I progression.... [more]

[PS: The article gets a more permanent archive URL once a new post goes up; I'll update this post when that happens]

remembering the boss

[the post from last year]

On his 68th birth anniversary, the first thing one notes is the number of articles online paying tribute to the late great Rahul Dev Burman aka Pancham. One of the longest threads on RMIM (courtesy: Vinay) also ends up (fortuitously) discussing the numbers (useful when you get into debates comparing Pancham and the other great musical directors of yore).

It's been a long while since a compilation CD hit the stands with some of his minor works dusted and cleaned. It's not too much fun to take solace in MP3s ripped off vinyl by considerate fans. There's a certain glee in seeing that bespectacled cheerful enthusiastic face staring back at you on a spanking new CD on the shelves (not to mention the private ego boost at being the only one in the store to not just recognise the songs listed but also to have sat through the reeling wrecks that didn't really deserve them). But the day also makes listening to the scattered nuggets in his ouevre and marvel at the creative verve that makes them shine: the frenetic electric guitar giving way to a crooning Asha Bhosle in a.ndheraa a.ndheraa (from Rani Mera Naam); less-heard mujaraas like aap aaye GariibaKaane (from Sitara) and raajaa ke a.nganaa (from Yaar Meri Zindagi); the unreleased kisii Gariib ke dil se (from Sitamgar), the best song (perhaps) that Shailendra Singh ever sang; the creative hubris of ek hasiin gulabadan (from Karishma); the energy of sharaabii aa.Nkhe.n (from Madhosh); jaa re jaa mai.n tose na boluu.N (from Mr. Romeo), perhaps Pancham's only foray (ironically, given his nickname) into jhap taal... mahafil kaa ye ra.ng na TuuTe jab tak subah na ho. The list could go on. You've been gone over 13 years now, Pancham, but there's still a lot to cherish and discover in your musical legacy. Here's hoping that the fruit of your adventures in song survives the spate of Revivals and Rare Gems compilations and finds a host of new listeners. A high five to the sultan of song.

wo jinakii na_ii hai ye duniyaa, ma.nzil hai na_ii
piichhe nahii.n dekhaa karate mu.D\-mu.D ke kabhii
sajate hii chale jaate hai.n jiivan kii galii

bag of links: Rishi Kapoor talks about how much Pancham's music contributed to his image | The debt the remix crowd owes him | Gulshan Bawra's reminiscences hosted on indiaFM and the TOI.

The TOI version of Bawra's flashback includes an interesting note about the compilation that I've heard mentioned (perhaps at the PanchamMagic shows):

Then suddenly, in 1994, there was a void. So, I took out all the tapes of our dummy song recordings, which also included our informal conversations, arguments, fights and jokes, and began hearing them. Everytime I miss him, I take out the tapes and listen to them. Aur aankhon mein aasoo aa jate hai," recalls Gulshan.

It was these chats and recordings that gave Gulshan the idea to compile these moments into an album. A unique album that comprises not only R D Burman's classics, but also actual conversations between R D and Gulshan, the creative clashes the two had while making songs and a whole bunch of trivia on Pancham Da.

That's a CD worth looking forward to, if the snatches from the sessions for mai.n huu.N lily (Bond 303) the alternative melody for ruup teraa mastaanaa from the sittings for pyaar hame.n kis mo.D pe (Satte Pe Satta) are any indication.

new contribution to the song of the fortnight: naa jaa o mere hamadam / Pyar Ka Mausam

{previous post in thread}

Another new article of mine has surfaced on the Panchammagic Song of the Fortnight page:

naa jaa o mere hamadam / film: Pyar Ka Mausam (1969) / lyrics: Majrooh
Our song for this edition, Lata's haunting naa jaa o mere hamadam comes off the Pyar ka Mausam soundtrack, which boasted nine songs that saw Pancham in fine form. Majrooh pens a familiar staple of Bollywood films: the heroine beseeching her lover to return to her after a lover's quarrel, or perhaps a misunderstanding of sorts. In addition to being one of Lata's best renditions, the song also boasts another example of Pancham's penchant for experimenting with arrangements and sounds: the striking (no pun intended) use of church bells. It's a Morricone-esque flourish employed for a different mood. But what mood is it? Despite the familiar territory, the trademark mix of elements makes the intent a bit ambiguous.
... [more]

[PS: The article gets a more permanent archive URL once a new post goes up; I'll update this post when that happens]

addendum: [august 25, 2006] The page has just received some cool embellishments: the LP cover and some sample audio clips.

[august 14, 2007]: URL updated.

rahul dev burman: june 27, 1939 - january 04, 1994

He would have been a merry 67 today. And the years since his passing have seen a lot change in Hindi film music. Regrettably, his presence and impact have grown so much since his death, one wonders if he would've enjoyed the same adulation and acclaim had he survived to pull a few more tricks out of his bag of music.

Technology seems to have replaced the need for innovations like the use of bottles filled with water to different levels, percussion played out on things as diverse as school classroom desks, spoons, tumblers, and an assistant's back, composite rhythms played out on an assortment of instruments; or for the seamless blending of raags in ways both evident and subtle; the ability to produce a cabaret boat song, a dance hall number laced with brass, funky guitar lines, crazy refrains and choruses, a club number that bore no structural resemblance to the mukha.Daa-a.ntaraa form. And yet with synthesizer tone and rhythm banks contributing to "music" the Pancham stamp has been undeniable in the Jatin-Lalit canon, in the endless attempts to mimic his trademark guttural caterwauling (khallaas in Company, for example). Modern tunes bear a striking resemblance to the tunes of a man who had his share of guilt for lifting tunes from all over the map (the variety in his influences remains unchallenged, IMHO): Anu Malik's merii chaahato.n kaa sama.ndar revisits gulaabii aa.Nkhe.n, Uttam Singh's bholii sii suurat retreads nashaa husn kaa utar jaayegaa. Sandeep Chowta even took churaa liyaa and turned it around to create an ethereal lounge piece called ayil aruhc.

The sultan of song would turn around from his peppy tunes and dig into the font of khamaaj, bihaag, jogiyaa, shivara.njinii, maalagu.njii, kedaar, kiirawaaNii, yaman kalyaaN, kalaawatii, bhairavii, piiluu, pahaa.Dii, to.Dii, miyaa malhaar and sha.nkaraa to produce a slew of memorable tunes. And his canon is laden with examples of the typical RDB rhythm. Songs like tujhase naaraaz nahii.n and raah pe rahate hai.n are good examples of this rhythm in use.

The L-P school of music had its Dholaks; most of Bollywood ended up providing the string section enough work for generations. RDB gave the shakers a new lease of life. His ouevre even sports rarities like chho.Doo sanam and har ek raastaa and jaane do naa that eschew the use of violins.

The days of collecting familiars no longer in circulation, rarities long forgotten, and unreleased nuggets are drawing to a close, but the days of rediscovering something interesting in his songs are in no such danger. As long as I can pick a song I've heard several times before and suddenly notice how the complex rhythm pattern breaks down or how the harmonic phrases are arranged, I don't think I'm getting off the RDB bandwagon. RIP Pancham.

ye zi.ndagii kuchh bhii sahii par ye mere kis kaam kii
ho jisake liye jiite hai.n log bas hai kamii us naam kii

new contribution to the song of the fortnight

{previous post in thread}

Another new article of mine has surfaced on the Panchammagic Song of the Fortnight page:

kyaa jaano (dekho ye mere ba.ndhe haath) / film: Bandhe Haath (1974) / lyrics: Majrooh
Bandhe Haath makes the record books as the only film to feature the lead pair of Amitabh Bachchan and Mumtaz as well as featuring Amitabh Bachchan's first double role. The film's box office failure fuelled Mumtaz's reluctance to star alongside Amitabh Bachchan and she opted out of Zanjeer (which broke the jinx of flops that ended with Bandhe Haath). The soundtrack boasted the cabaret boat song o maa.Njhii o maa.Njhii. and also featured Kishore's expository lament about impersonation that is the subject of this article.
Bachchan plays a thief on the run, who takes on the identity of a dead playwright and ends up leading a double life fraught with moral dilemmas and emotional conflicts. Bollywood films have given us numerous instances of the scenario where our protagonist converts a party song into a thinly veiled lament with lines whose meaning is obvious to everyone in the audience but not to most people at the party. I don't remember how kyaa jaano mai.n huu.N kaun is picturised in the film, but it fits this device like a glove, both in words and arrangements. Majrooh's simple words and lines like jalataa huu.N lekin pahaluu badal naa sakuu.N mai.n convey the anguish of repressed emotions and desires, the consequences of impersonation and duplicity.

Musically, the song has an interesting structure. In addition to the free-form humming that opens the song, we have three verses and two interludes. Each verse seems to be a composite of three components. Using the first verse (without the repetitions) as an example, the first two lines comprise the first part (let's call it F1 for convenience), the next two the second (F2) and the last two the third (F3).

क्या जानो मैं हूँ कौन मारा हुआ ज़िन्दगी का
मुझको तो महफ़िल में लाया हैइ प्यार किसी का
लग के गले से फिर भी मचल ना सकूँ मैं
देखो ये मेरे बंधे हाथ
कैसे मिलूँ तुमसे चाहूँ तो मिल ना सकूँ मैं
देखो ये मेरे बंधे हाथ

The structure of the song (repetitions omitted again for convenience) thus becomes:

Intro | {F1 F2 F3} | first interlude | {F1 F2 F3} | second interlude | {F1 F2 F3}

This breakdown proves useful when we consider the genesis of this song: the tune first appeared three years ago as tobu bole keno in R D Burman's first Bengali film venture Rajkumari starring Uttam Kumar and Tanuja. This was reportedly the first time Kishore Kumar sang for Uttam Kumar (who belts out the number at the piano while Tanuja listens with varying looks of affection). While the film didn't do well, all its songs reappeared in subsequent Hindi film assignments. The structure of the Bengali song is slightly different from that of the Hindi version:

F3 | first interlude | {F1 F2 F3} | second interlude | {F1 F2 F3}

The second interlude in the Bengali version became the first interlude in the Hindi version, which gives us a grand total of 3 interludes across the two songs. Despite the similarities, there are notable changes in the meter and the arrangements.

The Hindi recording seems to suffer from the murkiness and tuning shift that plagues a lot of R D Burman records (Kishore's jiinaa to hai is another example). Given the popularity of this song among fans of the composer and the singer, it wouldn't be a bad idea to add this to the next list of remasters. The song begins with an Em strum on the acoustic guitar. On cue, Kishore begins humming a free-form melody in the scale of Em. You can hear faint vibes accompanying him and near the end of this fragment the melody on the vibe features the seventh from the harmonic flavor of the minor scale. It also introduces one of the outlying notes in the song, the diminished 5th (Bb) in tandem with Kishore, who leads into the fifth and ends the fragment. It almost seems as if the vibe melody was providing Kishore his note. Kishore begins fragment F1 without any rhythmic accompaniment but still keeping slow time. Faint bass runs can be heard and the bass leads the rhythm section in to accompany Kishore's repetition of fragment F1. The percussion (a composite of conga and shakers) is minimal and yet bears the Pancham stamp all over. The trustworthy string section can also be heard, although not in the overt form that characterises the bulk of Bollywood songs. Also heard are stabs from the accordion, punctuating the lines Kishore sings. As Kishore begins fragment F2, the percussion changes pattern and you can hear the strings offering complement. A flute piece connects the end of fragment F2 and the beginning of fragment F3.

The outlandish flourish of Pancham is seen in the use of the minor second (F) during fragments F2 and F3. The foreign note appears on the chordal accompaniment at the end of fragment F2 and later marks the end of the melody of fragment F3; this fragment is built on the fifth, sixth, seventh of the natural minor but heavily uses the diminished fifth we heard during the introductory fragment. Fragments F2 and F3 elevate this song musically making it musically interesting and confirming the genius of Pancham at work.

The first interlude is introduced by the flute and then led by the accordion (playing chord stabs) with gentle intermittent vibes; the string section brings the short fragment to a close.

The second and third verses follow the structure of the first, but a few interesting additions appear. As Kishore repeats fragment F1, you can hear a violin providing accompaniment and then there's a pleasant brief piano run as Kishore moves to fragment F2.

A flute piece covers the last measures of the second verse and moves into the second interlude. This time around the accordion plays melodic fragments complemented by the string section. It's interesting to see how both interludes end delicately to introduce the verse that follows.

The song ends neatly on the fifth (B) as Kishore finishes the repetition of fragment F3 in the third verse. You can almost see our protagonist leaving the party at this point with the camera closing in on the one person most likely to have understood what was conveyed in the song.

[PS: The article gets a more permanent archive URL once a new post goes up; I'll update this post when that happens] july 01, 2006: URL updated.

new contribution to the song of the fortnight {previous post in thread}

A new article of mine has surfaced on the Panchammagic Song of the Fortnight page:

o ha.nsinii / film: Zehreela Insaan (1974) / lyrics: Majrooh
Zehreela Insaan was S R Puttanna Kanagal's remake of his Kannada hit Naagara Haavu based on a Talukina Ramaswami Subba Rao novel of the same name. That film made a star out of Vishnuvardhan but the Hindi remake directed by Kanagal himself didn't fare as well, making things a bit difficult for Rishi Kapoor. The most cherished artifact of the film, however, has been this Kishore gem, which, as rumour would have it, was originally meant to be a Shailendra Singh song.

This is a rather short song (a 2-line mukha.Daa and two 2-line a.ntaraas, minus all the repetitions for musical effect) and Majrooh employs simple Hindi and a handful of metaphors for a lover's call to his beloved. Pancham chooses to give the song a melody in a minor scale, a scale usually associated with sadness (although there are exceptions). The seed for the melody in the mukha.Daa seems to be Michelle Legrand's theme for the 1971 film Summer of '42. While Anu Malik used the same source to a greater extent in his prelude to tere dar par sanam in Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Ayee, Pancham limits his quote to "o ha.nsinii."
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[PS: The article gets a more permanent archive URL once a new post goes up; I'll update this post when that happens] may 02, 2006: URL updated.

it was 12 years ago today ... [dedicated to JR and BVHK for inundating my inbox in IST with glorious related laughs]


that our own Sgt. Pepper died a lonely heart ... Each passing year only makes your music more vital Pancham. The remix raajaas continue to plunder your work to fill their coffers, close ones seem to be toeing that line too, your ignored and forgotten scores still come to light only in drips.

And then we have schmendriks like Anu Malik who manage to find net space thanks to portals like Rediff to pay tribute[sic] to the master (Incidentally, when you called up, I was listening to the song Tumne mujhe dekha [from the 1966 movie Teesri Manzil] composed by Panchamda. And when you reminded me that it his 12th death anniversary, it was a bit too much to handle for me.).

I was still waiting and the door was ajar. I peeped in. I could see that suddenly, at the last moment, he changed whatever music he had composed and whatever his musicians were playing. Today, I find the same trait in myself -- I change my music at the last moment if I find it is not gelling.

He was a complete and versatile composer. He could give you an Amar Prem and a Teesri Manzil at the same breath --which, if you notice, I have done when I did while I composed Judwaa and Refugee and Virasat and Border. They are two different genres of music.

Nitwit! this is about Pancham not about you. We'll worry about you when you kick the bucket ...

You can still remember the first time you looked your lover in the eye for the first time. Those moments are trapped in his music. You pick up the score of Jawani Diwani or Teesri Manzil and your heart starts hurting.

Does this guy count from 0? How many first times can you have the first time?

He could twist tunes so well. He would pick up foreign tunes and make it his own tunes. If you remember Chura liya hai tumne jo dil ko [from the 1973 movie Yaadon Ki Baaraat], or even if he lifted from Abba, he would turn the antara [the chorus of the song] so well that it changed the whole tune. I think that is one thing that any composer can learn from R D Burman. Rather, you could say that is what I have learnt from him.

So, you're saying you got the HOW-TO for filching songs from him? Perhaps that would explain why churaa liyaa works and why dil de de denaa truly sucks (the "funky" lyrics being an added dose of skunk love) ... Tell us about the time you hinted that people like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who served as raw material for your numerous compositions, should feel grateful for your pilferage ... And then tell me how the a.ntaraa became the chorus of a song? I thought the mukha.Daa usually corresponded to the chorus ... You'd know better ... Take that ghaTam you frequently use in all your "critic-friendly" music and set it on a collision course with your cranium ...

I was unfortunate I never had an opportunity to learn from him. But his music was so strong that you can learn music by just listening to his songs.

You said it dude. Just like you listened to gulaabii aa.Nkhe.n and made merii chaahato.n kaa samu.ndar to dekho ...

He would pick up foreign tunes and make it his own tunes.

Could we get a proofreader who knows English please?

Give RDB a break! Let's just pay tribute to him with silence.

Elsewhere: an interesting article in the Hindustan Times paying tribute to the late genius in a vein similar to Subhash K Jha's ... and it even paraphrases Osho's epitaph. Note from the first author: the mathematical error (11 instead of 12) that permeates the piece (and severely hinders its credibility) was a contribution from the copy editors in the publishing house. Aah, they probably worked for HMV/Saregama at some point. Also, please pardon the random occurrence of spaces. This comes from using sophisticated closed-box tools like the .NET Framework (v7.1) without even a marginal foundation in basic HTML and web authoring.

More elsewhere: The Calcutta Times city supplement features a collection of memories loaded with trivia. Please bear with the TOI's patent-pending stupid clunky design complete with the truly useless "Print this page" --- what happened to "Printable version" for the whole article you quarter-wits?

outrageous!

Asha Bhosle's "surprise gift" to the late great RDB on his death anniversary (Jan 04) smacks of so much undeniable greed. Exploitation at its purest.

"It's an album entitled Real RD. It features 21 of R D Burman's choicest numbers -- mostly rendered by Ashaji, with a few duets where Sudesh Bhosle will accompany her," reveals a source from Sa Re Ga Ma, the music company that owns the copyrights for most of Asha Bhosle's and RD's movie soundtracks. ...
What makes Real RD really special is that Asha will be re-interpreting the tracks, rendering the songs all over again to suit the techno-advancements in the new millennium.

Real RD eh? That's like releasing aajaa aajaa mai.n huu.N pyaar teraa on a compilation CD titled Rare gems of R D Burman. SaReGaMa's in it for the money and nothing else. After all, when you own the copyrights for most of Asha Bhosle's and RD's movie soundtracks (Rocky seems to have been part of the stuff they bought/licensed from Polygram/MIL/Universal), why wouldn't you just remaster 'em and release 'em (you do have a marketing division to sell all this don't you?) instead of milking the stuff to create maudlin tired soulless floor thumpers.

Something like the Kronos effort seems so much more interesting.

the panchammagic song of the fortnight

The folks at Panchammagic.org are a swell enthusiastic bunch, who've been responsible for organising two shows in Pune every year dedicated to the music of the late great R D Burman. The first is on Jan 04 (RDB's death anniversary) and the other on June 27 (RDB's DOB). They've had a wide array of themes and several generous guests both famous (Gulzar, Amit Kumar, Bhupinder, Shailendra Singh) to the lesser-known (Homi Mulla, the late Marutirao Keer, Manohari Singh, Nitin Shankar).

They've been running a series called "Song of the Fortnight" with articles on RDB's music and had been kind and generous to ask YT to write something up for the series. Since I sent my first article, a few more have made it to the page. Pointers follow (with only extracts, so that these guys get some more hits)

dha.Dakan pal pal / film: Arjun (1985) / lyrics: Javed Akhtar
...
The song opens with a spacey mix of sounds (dominated by a recurring synth motif and short flute passages) conveying a sense of mystery.

The electric guitar (which has a greater role to play later) makes its appearance with a few strums, as the music moves to a crescendo on the strings. Inexplicably, the music company (then MIL, now Universal) decided to exercise their "creative" veto and chopped off this opening minute of the song on subsequent non-vinyl releases.
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pyaar jab na diyaa / film: Sitamgar (1985) / lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri
The case of the "Sitamgar" soundtrack is a strange one. All the songs on this album were gems. Even the unreleased seldom-heard Shailendra Singh song "kisii Gariib ke dil se" (having had the privilege of hearing it a couple of times, I am willing to accept this as his best song ever) was testimony to Pancham's ability to elevate even mundane common place lyrics with his melodies and musical embellishments. Yet, the soundtrack languishes in the doldrums. It's very rare, and neither the CD nor tape is as easily available as some of his other soundtracks. You'll be in luck only if you snag a few of those rare compilations with strange names and manage to find a stray inclusion. All this means that the soundtrack remains relatively "under-sung". Although the ISB transcriptions are almost all there, they can only present the lyrical content with hardly any hint of what Pancham had to offer to the song. It thus seems fitting to choose a song from the album (also the first song that I remember having heard from the list).
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har ek raasataa / film: Ameer Aadmi Gharib Aadmi (1985) / lyrics: Nida Fazli
In the early-to-mid 80s R. D. Burman was very busy. He boasted a full workload and was a favourite of the big banners. One camp of listeners lauded his creativity while another contended that he was overworked and headed for burnout. What could not be denied was the persistent diversity in his music. He continued to be a favourite for new launches: directors and actors making their débuts (and sometimes even their shot at a second coming). Amjad Khan was one such example. The talented actor chose Pancham as the music director not just for his directorial début (Adhura Aadmi), but also for the next two films he would helm (Chor Police, Ameer Aadmi Gharib Aadmi). Reportedly, these were above-average efforts and indicated that Amjad Khan was definitely a cut above the rest in mainstream filmmaking, but alas, the 80s did not prove to be a good time for either Amjad Khan or Pancham, who, as the 90s drew near, hit his worst streak of all time (paradoxically, so close to his winning run of work). He became box office poison, people withdrew from him, and he was left to watch one great song after another go down the drainpipe of anonymity as the films bit the dust at the box office (or worse, never made it to the box office). Amjad Khan had a couple of other movies to his name too, but these died either in pre-production or on their way to the marquee. And then there was Abhi To Main Jawaan Hoon.
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jiinaa to hai / film: Paanch Dushman (1973) / Daulat ke Dushman (1982) / lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri
This lament from Paanch Dushman found new listeners thanks to featuring (with the original film name), along with other rarities, on the splendid 2-CD compilation Tumse Milke from HMV (the first of hopefully many more collaborations between this music publishing behemoth and the cleansing efforts of Pancham Studios). Its previous CD avatar (CDF 120419) was one of several attempts by HMV at squeezing several less-lauded movie soundtracks onto CDs. There it shared space with Balika Badhu and Doosri Sita under its revised moniker Daulat ke Dushman.
...
The omission of the third allows the bass pattern to remain consistent throughout the song despite the shifts between a major and minor key. And in the mukha.Daa, the use of the F betrays an overlap of the prevailing E natural minor with E Phrygian. There's also the use of both sevenths, which would suggest the use of the harmonic minor scale.
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merii nazar hai tujhape / film: The Burning Train (1980) / lyrics: Sahir
...
Set primarily in Abminor in standard tuning (and liberally exploiting the natural harmonic and melodic variants), the song opens with a flourish of brass after which violins backed by chord strums on an acoustic guitar join in. A drum roll marks the end of this fragment as the bass guitar tumbles in overlapping percussion spliced across the left (claves) and right channels (hi-hat) complement off-beat chord stabs on the synthesizer. The string section joins with three-note-fragments starting on the second count of each measure. The chord strums continue on the acoustic guitar. A short solo phrase is up next on the electric guitar with the brass providing a resounding response at the end of it. The brass section launches into a four measure contribution, before a percussive improvisation section featuring, among other things, the bass guitar, a shaker, congas, the hi-hat and the triangle. As if this was not enough, RDB now throws in the South Indian element by introducing the mridangam, which then proceeds to accompany phrases played out on the sitar. The return to the western element isn't too far away as the next segment features melodic phrases and chords played out on an acoustic guitar while another acoustic guitar provides constant strums of chords. The trumpet replaces the first acoustic guitar for the coda of the prelude as the bass guitar punctuates the measures. The off-beat synthesizer stabs return with the shaker and the acoustic guitar to provide the rhythm introducing the song.
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kronos and RD: again

The wonderfully dark, moody, harsh, aggressive and aurally violent Black Angels was my introduction to the Kronos Quartet. But it was their 2000 release Caravan that cemented my attention to their work.

Two reasons.

One, being a trivia-monger, I was fascinated to find out the trail of history accompanying Misirlou, which underscored the inventive madness of QT's Pulp Fiction. The Dick Dale track (and there's another trail I followed, surf music) was in fact a version of a traditional Greek song that had been published in sheet music form by Nicholas Roubanis.

The second, and more important reason, was that they chose to cover an R D Burman track: aaj kii raat from Caravan (yes, the nominal coincidence). The arrangement was interesting, and there was a dollop in the form of Ustad Zakir Hussain performing the tabalaa on the track.

And now, on August 23, 2005, the Quartet's latest brush with R D Burman will hit the stands. This time it's a full-album effort titled You've Stolen My Heart: Songs from R D Burman's Bollywood and has Asha Bhosle guesting on 8 of the 12 tracks. Ustad Zakir Hussain returns on the tabalaa. I've been following the news of this release for a while now, and even managed to check out the samples. Despite the grouse about Asha singing at this age (even though she is probably the most ideal candidate for a collaboration like this), they sound interesting (especially dam maaro dam). You can get a few chuckles out of some of the track titles too.

May I also point you to Peter Culshaw's favourable take on the album (like I was going to show you bad reviews!). There's a nice note of comparison between A R Rahman (widely regarded as RDB's successor -- I'm not so sure, but that's my mileage) and RDB: Rahman is really the Indian Lloyd Webber; with a melodic talent, certainly, but lacking Burman's wit and panache. Culshaw hits a minor gaffe though when he notes Bhosle was even responsible for introducing rock'n'roll [sic] to India, with her hit 'Ek Do Teen'. Um, if you're talking about the Tezaab song, that was Alka Yagnik. If you're talking about the Awara song, that was Shamshad Begum. As for "introducing" rock n' roll to India, fuggedaboutit.

Sigh! Pancham if only you were alive to collaborate in person instead of opera.