Indian Music has produced many artists who can be called LEGENDs. HMV has recently come up with a series by the same name, which tries to encompass the work of a legendary artist in a set of 5 CDs. Just name a few in the series are Lata, Asha, Kishor, Rafi, Mukesh, R.D., S.D., etc from Hindi Film industry; while HMV has gone ahead to take note of Classical Music Artists like Pt. Jasraj, Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma and alike.
As a Birthday Gift, I recently got one of the collections from the series, of the most favourite artist of mine, PANCHAM.
What should I say about Pancham. Well, should I start with the name itself ? R.D.Burman was nicknamed as PANCHAM by his own father, the legendary S.D.Burman while he was a kid. He said that as a kid too RD cried in the sur of the fifth note ’’Pa’’ in Indian Music.
Papa Burman became aware of the talent when as a small boy RD played Harmonica in his school function. Papa was the chief guest of that function and he was to give an award to his own son. He didn’t lose any opportunity to use this talent of his son in his songs. The famous Harmonica Passages in the songs ’’Yeh Apna Dil To Aawara’’ and ’’Mere Sapno Ki Raani’’ are played by none other than RD himself for his father. But to develop a Better Musician from him, Papa sent him for a formal training of Tabla and Sarod to Pt. Biswas and Ali Akbar Khan respectively.
Well, there is much to say about Pancham, but the subject here is not him but HMV’s collection of his tunes to trace his path from Chote Nawab to 1942 a Love Story. The collection is divided into 5 CDs.
I won’t go into details of each songlist or CD but will just give your Salient features of the collection that makes it different from the rest of the similar collections of RD (I myself have 3 of them).
TANDEMS : The songs which have been sung separately by two singers have been mixed as a Tandem. I feel it is the Hallmark of this Collection. The songs like, ’’Rimzim Gire Sawan (Kishor / Lata)’’, ’’Wadiyan Mera Daaman (Rafi / Lata)’’, etc. There are 4 such songs.
Many RARE GEMS also have been featured like, Aaj Jo Meri.. Ghar Aaja Ghir Aaye.., or O Ganga Maiyan which are rarely available elsewhere.
There have been few ACTUAL RECORDINGS from Gulzar’s personal collection during the compositions of various songs. You can actually hear the Maestro creating the melody in his own voice. Songs like Aaj Kal Paaon Jamin Par.. or Katra Katra Miltee Hai which were sung by Lata and Asha respectively, can be heard in crude form Pancham’s voice. This feature was also available in another collection viz. Pancham : Gulzar remembers R.D. which was released soon after RD’s demise.
In between the songs and to start each CD, are scattered COMMENTS OF LEGENDS in Music like Lata, Asha, Gulzar, Madan Mohan, Manna Dey, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma. Also RD’s admirers like Jaya Bachchan, Jatin-Lalit, Shammi Kapoor, Majrooh, etc.
The Collection also features few of the Pancham’s NON FILM SONGS like from the album Dil Padosi Hai a combination of Gulzar - Pancham - Asha.
Gulzar is known to write unorthodox and unconventional lyrics for his films; and similarly he is known for working very well with Pancham. Their combination has given many Gems to Film Music. He sites his memory when once he handed over one such unconventional song to Pancham, and his first reaction was, ’’Next time you would give me a Headline from a Newspaper and would ask me to tune it.’’ Well, jokes apart, but RD had enough talent to even do that.
As Javed Akhtar says for him, ’’his tunes were completely smooth compositions without any rough edges.’’ And Pancham agrees to it by saying, ’’Ninety percent of my tunes have come to me within two to three minutes of listening to the situation. My first spontaneous inspiration is always the Best.’’;
Well, you hear this collection and you too would agree to him.