The year was 1929. The royal Darbar of the Nizam of Hyderabad Mir Osman Ali Khan Siddiqi, Asaf Jah VII glittered with the best of musicians from across the country. In deference to the Nizam, many of the singers performed standing in front of him. But there was one singer who made the Nizam sit up and take note of the wonderful voice he was listening to, and forced him to accord due respect of allowing the performer to sit down and finish the song. That talented singer was Bai Sundarabai Jadhav from Pune, who, though forgotten now, was one of India’s most celebrated recording artists of her time and whose repertoire spanned several decades and became popular through different forms of media. So pleased was the Nizam with Bai Sundarabai’s Urdu diction and rendition of ghazals that he also permitted her to sing his compositions.
Sundarabai was born in 1885 to Marotrao, a contractor, who had noticed the innate musical talents in his daughter quite early. The father took Sundarabai, who did not attain any formal education, to Satara, where she trained initially in light classical music. It was here that Sundarabai added a vast corpus of Marathi folk songs (known as Lavni) to her musical talent from her guru Dabhade Gondhali. In Pune, Sundarabai learnt Hindustani classical music under Shankarrao Ghorpadkar. She also found an unusual teacher in mystical Thakurdasoba, who enriched her repertoire with several devotional songs and bhajans.
Such was the dedication of Sundarabai and her father that when Thakurdasoba suddenly decided to migrate to Bombay, Marotrao, who wasn’t quite well-off, decided to rent a small room in the city’s Chirabazar near Girgaon – close to a temple where Thakurdasoba had decided to spend his life. In the precincts of Gora Ram temple of Thakurdwar, Sundarabai’s voice blossomed to greater heights with several soulful bhajans that she later popularised. Polishing her Hindi and Urdu diction, she also learnt ghazals, Hindustani music, as well as the folk songs of the Banaras region under several gurus like Dhamman Khan, Gulam Rasool Khan and Keshav Bhaiyya.
With this kind of eclectic training, it was just a matter of time before Sundarabai took to live performances. She received wide acclaim from connoisseurs within and outside Maharashtra. Her guru, Dhamman Khan, was a tabla maestro and often accompanied her to her classical concerts. During her many concert tours, Sundarabai came in touch with the musical divas of her time – Vidyadhari Bai, Siddheshwari Devi and Rasoolan Bai (all from Banaras) – and incorporated the purabi style of singing from them into her own. From Lucknow to Banaras to Hyderabad, Sundarabai was a rage across India.
Quite expectedly, her music soon caught the attention of veteran Marathi theatre thespian Bal Gandharva. He was conceptualising a play, ‘Ekaach Pyala’, in 1920, and asked her to compose the music for it. Sundarabai readily agreed and the outcome was a series of hit Marathi natyasangeet songs as well as ghazals that were used in the play.
In October 1921, The Gramophone Company and its recording agent George Walter Dillnutt solicited Sundarabai for recording sessions. Ever the innovator, she agreed to this offer as well. In Bombay, she cut about 12 records under the Zonophone label for them in this session. Among them is the following Thumri in Raga Piloo, ‘Chhodo Mori Baiyyan’.
There was no looking back after this for Sundarabai. With the entry of electric recording in 1925, artists could sing without the limitations that they faced during the acoustic era, including having to scream at high pitch. Sundarabai recorded for numerous labels such as Odeon, Regal, Young India, The Twin, and Columbia. In a recording career that spanned for 30 years, Sundarabai cut close to 100 records, recording about 180 songs on them.
No comments:
Post a Comment