A Noorjehan classic

From across the Indian border comes this suprlative composition that has endured as one of my very favorite Noorjehan songs, if not The favotire. Everything about this song is superb, the orchestration and the supreme rendition by the Mallika-e-Tarannum. It is that effortlessness in her rendition that elevates this composition. Supreme!!

Khayyam's "Mohobbat is ko kehte hain"

 

More than a decade ago when I was still pursung rare music in HMV's audio casstettes, I bought one which had songs from two films- Mohobbat isko kehte hain and Shagoon. Both had music by Khayyam. I had of course known Khayyam saab for his music in Sholaa aur shabnam, Umrao Jaan and other 70s ventures but even more so for his superlative non-film ghazals and geets with Talat and Mukesh. Both these films were disasters as far as box-office collections go and to be honest, I think they deserved their fate. At least, the former did. I saw it on Doordarshan some years back and it was a pain to sit through the film. But the songs are in a different league.

Lets start with Mohobbat isko kehte hain. The soundtrack is sheer megic with a combination of Rafi, Mukesh and Suman Kalyanpur doing the magic. My favorite songs from the film in descending order:

5. merii niGaah ne kyaa kaam laajavaab kiyaa (Mohd Rafi) : This film was released at a time when the Shammi Kappor-Shankar Jaikishan-Mohd Rafi brand of music was rooling the roost. But Rafi demonstrates his versatility by rendering this song in such a beautifully soft and romantic way.

 

4. itanaa husn pe guruur naa huzuur kiijiye (Mukesh) : A sheer delight of a song that was picturized on the comedian of the film. Mukesh is in fine form (as he usually was with Khayyam). I find it remarkable that even in such happy songs, Khayyam introduces a whiff, just a whiff, of melancholy with his orchestration. I lik it immensely.

3. ham se hotii mohobbat tumako (Suman Kalyanpur & Mukesh): Mukesh has rarely sounded as romantic as he does here. The song is a sheer delight with a brisk pace and Khayyam's seemilgly simplistic style that however digs deep, deep into your heart. Sheer magic !!

2. Thahariye hosh me aa luu.N (Mohd Rafi & Suman Kalyanpur) : Oh my !! What a melody this is.. Rafi and only Rafi could have rendered this with such gentleness, romance and that masculanity. Suman does her best to match up but Rafi is on another stratosphere. No wonder it endures as one of Rafi's most memorable renditions. And Khayyam saab- how is it that even in this oh-so-romantic song, you still make me fight to hold back tears?

1. jo ham pe guzaratii hai (Suman Kalyanpur): A surprise for some perhaps. Its a close thing between this song and the earlier duet but Suman's solo in this film captures everything I love about Khayyamsaab's music. Its simplicity of pesentation, focus on sheer melody, depth of emotions and a composition that immediately wrings your heart. Its Suman's best in my books. She is no Lata-clone here but distinctly Suman.

 

My Shagoon favorites follow in the next post.. but hope you enoyed these melodies.

Melodies from Kerala

It is heart breaking to see the current state of cinema in Kerala, not too different from the state of West Indian cricket today. I think of the likes of Viv Richards and Clice Lloyd and Micheal Holding and Malcolm Marshall and all thouse giants who dwarfed the rest of the world not very long ago, and then I look at their team today. Its sad.

Tme same is equally true of Malayalam films. Not very long ago – perhaps about 10-15 years ago, I was hooked on Malayalam films. Despite being a Tamilian having very limited knowledge of the Malayalam language, I enjoyed the tremendous variety and quality of films that came in. Mohanlal was my favorite and I savoured his films be it the comic fare (the films with Srinivasan, Priyadarshan) or his more dramatic fare- Bharatham, Pavithram, Dasaratham and the like. Apart from the quality of the films themselves, the music of the films was also most memorable and the picturizations of songs just superb. You usually had very few songs in a film – maybe 3 or 4- and they were usually back-ground songs.

I was just enjoying such a song today – and it really fills me with longing for an age that has rushed by..

Yesudas was obviously the Voice Premiere of Malayalam cinema – and has been so for a long long time now. Many of his songs are now landmarks of Indian cinema.

souparnikaamrutha from Kizhakunarum pakshi cast a spell over me. I had to keep listening to it again and again.  Very tastefully picturized too..

I think Kerala also benefitted from the compositions of many of the legendary music composers of Indian cinema. Salil Chowdhury was of course a household name there but Naushad also tried his hand there and I thought the result was great – much superior to his later output in Hindi films. Consider this melody..

But I think it is fair to say that Raveendran was the heart of the great Malayalam music of the time. He has created some of the finest songs but this song from His Highness Abdullah will perhaps be his definitive creation.. a milestone of Malayalam cine music

To round off, two of my most favorite songs from the same film Pavithram which also highlight the point I made earlier about the picturization of songs in Malayalam films in that period.. background with the story developing through the song. Both are brilliant compositions and I consider them to be amongst the most beautifully picturized songs ever

Kishore's masterpiece - panthii huuN main

I believe I have talked about Kishore Kumar's skills as a composer earlier and if I have, then I would unfailingly have expressed my deep, deep admiration of a masterpiece from Door kaa raahi, pa.nthii huu.N mai.n us path kaa. This post is only about that song because it is playing on my upgraded Mac OS X (Lion) system right now and I feel tears welling up again as I hear the melody play out.

Songs such as this capture the deep sensitivity of Kishore Kumar, a factor that he appeared to conceal by performing diametrically opposite characters in films. This glorious song is perhaps the brightest gem of the literal treasure of melodies that Kishore created in this off-beat film that ffew cared to watch. Its the store of a man in search of himself.. it stays away from adding any glitter-glamour of the typical Bombay film world. Its a throwback to the simplistic mode of films perfected by Bimal Roy and leter Hrishikesh Mukherjee albeit without any major leading heroes and heroines of the time barring Tanuja to an extent.

panthii huuN mai.n is beautiful poetry written in pure Hindi by A.Irshad. Kishore has brought to life the words through a brilliant composition that relies almost entirely on a simple, minimal Indian orchestra -mostly sitar, violin and the tabla. The prominence is on the emotional depth of the rendition,Kishore does what you would typically expect only a Lata or Talat or Mukesh to do - just pull the tears to your eyes. It is a depth of rendition that Kishore rarely got the oppurtunity to render during his prime. It is a sad loss.. because you listen even to his lighter romantic songs like vo dekhen to unakii inaayat (Fantoosh) and tum jahaaN jahaaN (Apna haath jagannaath), you realize the potential of the man. You wonder how things would have been if he had gotten to sing more for the likes of Anil Biswas, Khemchand Prakash.. those masters. But even as a composer of this one song alone, he deserves posterity..

Sheer magic  !!

Youtube - "kaThaputale kachh ke"

Is it a coincidence that the Bengali singers in Bombay like Hemantda and Mannada excelled in the devotional genre? This song is a more obscure one from a soundtrack that rates as one of the best from Shankar Jaikishan and more renowned for a host of Lata and Talat beauties.

Ae jaan-e-jigar

There are times when words fail. I had the pleasure of seeing this song today morning and it made it my day. This song never fails to move me. One of the most deeply romantic songs, yet so melancholic. Mukesh is at his very best here. No one but he could have sung this song. Truly, Mukesh sounds so brilliant when he sings the compositions of Anilda. One cant help but wish that Anilda had not been so Lata-fixated and had given more songs to his favorite male singers during his peak years. Ab.. but then you hear "man me kisii kii priit basaa le".. and one goes back to wishing for more Lata-Anilda :) The dilemma of great music..

Youtube - vo dekhe.n to unakii inaayat

An auspicious first post to the month which marks the half-year. A glorious melody su beautifully rendered by Kishore and Asha. This is the kind of Kishore I love - soft, gentle and oh-so-romantic. I wish he had sung more such beauties during this period.

Youtube - ham to jaanii pyaar karegaa

This song has captivated me for the past couple of weeks. I have never given "Baarish" much of a hear but I finally did and this song has since then kept me dancing. Chitalkar exudes so much fun into the song. Its a natural exuberance which is at once captivating and charming. At times, he sounds a lot like Kishore Kumar too.

A joyous song fit to join the likes of "sholaa jo bhaDake", "o baabuu" and "mausam_e_bahaar"

Youtube - "ye sa.nsaar ye sa.nsaar"

A beautiful Talat melody, a melody right down Talat's lane in fact. This film was made as "Samsaaram" in Telugu and Tamil as well where this song was rendered by A.M.Raja. A pleasing melody..

Youtube - "manidan enbavan" from "Sumaithangi"

One of the more perfect songs in Tamil films. Great lyrics by Kannadasan, superb composition and orchestration by Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy, beautifyllu rendered by P.B.Srinivas, well enacted by Gemini Ganesan and unforgettably picturized by Sridhar. The Marina Beach has rarely been as enigmatically shown on screen.

Tere saath chal rahe hain yeh zameen - Angaarey

A charming duet from one of S.D.Burman's less successful yet fondly remembered tracks from the early 1950s. Talat and Lata dazzle here, clearly at their respective peaks. Lata sounds deliciously sweet..

Lata - "bahaaren phir bhii aaye.ngii"

One of the finest of Lata's melodies ever. This is indisputably great composer Shyam Sundar's biggest claim to eternal fame. An early Lata voice in all its raw beauty. Cant get enough of this..

Jab jab phool khile tumhe yaad kiya - Shikast

A stunning beauty from Shankar Jaikishan during the pair's creatively peak years of the early 1950s. Lata and Talat sang a number of songs for SJ during this period and this duet is one of their very best. One of the definitive melodies of the time..

Noorjehan "Badi mushkil se" _ Lakhon me ek

A Pakistani song for a change. Noorjehan of course is the singer. I have heard and much enjoyed the song earlier. Nice to see it here..

Sapno ki suhani duniya ko - Shikast

One of Talat's most beautiful melodies in a film that is sadly forgotten today. I thought it was one of the best Dilip Kumar films of the time. Nalini Jaywant looks lovely as ever. Talat sounds his best and goes perfectly on Dilip. A melody forever

Reducing the size of a movie file for Youtube

I am rather new to uploading files on Youtube. I love the site and hence was surprised at how long it took to upload a song I had extracted from the "Garam coat" VCD movie. Took forever. On investigating, I found that the size of the song file was over 30MB !! No wonder it took so long. Then started my hunt to find tools that compressed a movie file on Windoze. I know a few apps on the Mac which could do this but not on Windoze. I downloaded plenty of apps which promised to do this but either they were too unfriendly or just didnt work. Finally, I was referred to this great tutorial where the author demonstrates how you could use the inbuilt Windows Movie Maker for this. I then experimented by reducing the size of this song to just 3MB and it worked just great. So a big thanks to the author of the tutorial..

Man mein kisi ki - Aaraam

My all-time favorite song can now be viewed on Youtube. Lata is sweet as honey, piano just out of this world, Madhubala so fresh and lovely though she falls short on acting the song on screen. Enjoy this song..

Anilda - thou art my God !

Yeh kis manzil pe le aayee - Main Suhagan Hoon

A wealth of videos of rare, old songs is available on Youtube. I will link to some of the ones I found and much enjoyed. Hope you like em as well. Thanks go to the kind souls who shared these videos with the rest of the world.

A delicious Talat gem. This is from a 1966 film and Talat's voice was still good enough to lend the perfect ambience to rhis melody. This shows that had the music of the times been along the lines of the 50s when Talat dominated, we could well have seen Talat's career continue with success till the late 1960s.