Oriental Traditional Music from LPs & Cassettes: The Sitar of India

Here we post a LP published in "The Living Tradition" series, recorded in India in 1968 by Deben Bhattacharya. This LP is interesting mainly because it contains one of the very few recordings of the great, but unfortunately little known Sarod player Damodarlal Kabra, the older brother of the famous Slide Guitar player Brij Bhushan Kabra. Damodarlal Kabra was the very first student of Ali Akbar Khan during the time when he was court musician in Jodhpur. That was in Ali Akbar Khan's early twenties. On Damodarlal Kabra see here.

We had already posted in 2013 a LP with one side by Damodarlal Kabra, also recorded in 1968 by Deben Bhattacharya. See here. Next we will post another LP published in Sweden, also with one side by him and Manju Bhatt, recorded at the same time as this one.

Manju Bhatt, later after marriage known as Manju Mehta, with whom he plays here a Jugalbandi, was at that time completely unknown. She is the older sister of Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and studied with Damodarlal Kabra and Ravi Shankar. In the last years a couple of CDs by her were published in India and UK. She also was the co-founder of one of the biggest festivals of Classical Indian Music in India, the Saptak Festival.

On side B there is another important, but little known musician: Umashankar Mishra, one of the very first students of Ravi Shankar and a very fine musician. On him see here. One would have wished that Deben Bhattacharya would have recorded a solo performance by him.