Wednesday 17 January 2018

Rahimuddin Khan Dagar (1901-1976) - Raga Asavari


Ustad Rahimuddin Khan Dagar was one of the very few from the 18th generation of the Dagars of whom quite a number of recordings exist. See the  wonderful LP which Bolingo on his excellent blog posted in 2011  It also exists as a cassette. Here we present a long Raga Asavari by this outstanding Dhrupad master. We received the recording on a CD in the early 2000s from our friend DM, who also made the covers. Many thanks to him. 
This Raga Asavari seems to be the same that was published, slightly edited, on the double CD "The Dhrupad of the Dagar Bani", Edizioni Musicali III Millennio, Roma, Italy, 2003. The source of our version here seems to be a cassette, as the timings suggest. Here from the CD the correct track information:

Raga Asavari:
Alap vilambit 
Alap nom tom madhya and drut 
Dhrupad chautal "Ayo jit hi" & Dhrupad sultal "Ana sunai bansuri Kanha" (same composition that the Senior Dagar Brothers sing on the Unesco LP)
with vocal support by R. Fahimuddin Dagar
Pakhawaj: Pandit Purushottam Das

Ustad Rahimuddin Khan Dagar is the father of Ustad Fahimuddin Dagar. See our post from 2011 here.
Next we will post some AIR broadcasts and two EPs by the great master.
On the artist see:



5 comments:

Kiran said...

Wow.... this is going really deep Tawfiq Saab. Its amazing to hear the Guru of the last generation of the Dagars. Many, many thanks!

Jérôme said...

Endless thanks for this dear Tawfiq.
Very much appreciated, as this great master
is amongst the very few true models that
live in my heart as a practioner...

Kiran said...

Just one quick note - The beautiful double CD you mentioned also has a roughly 7 min Dhrupad in Darbari by Rahimuddin Khansaab...
The double CD is not available anymore, but the recording can be found in most streaming music sites.

Unknown said...

This is most definitely the same recording as the Italian release, rather paradoxically in better sound!
The pakhawaj here is crystal clear which is delightful.
Of course, the recording has no dhamar, it has a very famous old chautal bandish and the same fast sultaal the senior brothers sang on their LP.

Tawfiq said...

Thank you for your comment. In India cassettes are copied over and over again. The quality often depends on, if your copy is a copy of a very early copy, which seems to be the case here.