Music And Movies

Recently as I was switching channels I chanced upon a song from the recent Tamil film, 'Kaviya Thalaivan'. The background for the story is supposed to be a drama troupe of the 1930s or 1940s in Tamilnadu. I haven't seen the movie so I cannot comment on how the movie dealt with this but the song was very disappointing. As a standalone tune the song is not bad but the overall effect was quite bad. No one seems to have taken any pains to recreate that era. The director, the art director, the music director: No one seems to have put in effort to give an authentic feel. Instead the dance seemed like a pale imitation of a Broadway musical rather than a song from the 1930s drama. This song and the movie reminded me of a few Indian films in which are set in the world of theater. I could immediately think of three such films (I know there are many more). I will write briefly about them. The first film I will take up is not strictly about theater. It is about a dancing troup

Have you heard the ‘Marwa’ of Ustad Amir Khan,  ‘Om Tat Sat’ of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, raag Shri of D.V. Paluskar and ‘Chandranandan’ of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan? If you have enjoyed these masterpieces, you need to thank a person called G.N.Joshi, who, as a recording executive of HMV, brought to us these everlasting treasures. G.N. Joshi wrote a book called ‘Down Melody Lane’ in which he details his interaction with legendary and not to so legendary musicians and his trials and tribulations to get recording done by these artists. In modern times, where the artists understand the need for publicity, getting them to record is not an issue. We are talking a different era here, an era where many musicians weren’t too keen to record. Many felt they were doing a favor to the company by recording their music. They did not understand the potential of the EP/LP records for being good publicity material. The also did not realize that these records would become archival material inspiring

Yesterday was M S Amma's 98th Birth Anniversary. I had tweeted three krithis, one each of the trinity, yesterday in her remembrance. I thought I will now write a few words on each of these krithis and out it up on my blog. As with any other singer, MS is also identified by a set of songs: Sriman Narayana, Sarojadalanetri, Akilandeswari, Kamakoti Peetasthithe, Maitrim Bhajatha (and many more) and rightly so for she owned these songs. (OK 'kuraionrum illa' also. So don't kill me now). Yet there were masterpieces which she sang as well as any other master. Unfortunately these have not been heard often enough. I want to bring to your notice three such masterpieces. Hopefully these will find their place in your MS playlist soon. We start with a charming Dikshitar krithi in the rare ragam, Madhava Manohari. I heard this krithi first in the voice of D K Pattammal. Her version is a tad faster, surprising given that DKP is known for her slow speed renditions. There is a

Bapu, the famous director and artist, passed away last month. Bapu was one of those directors whose sensibilities when it came to music and lyrics was highly refined. Many of the songs from his movies are now part of the Telugu film music canon. The canonical nature of the songs owe a lot to Bapu. Like K.Vishwanath, he gave equal importance to language, tradition and music in his films. Like K.Vishwanth, he too used K V Mahadevan as the music director for most of his movies. Bapu and K Viswanath's aesthetic senses was very similar in that they had great respect for tradition and were to a large extent idealists and moralists. The only difference between them as film makers is that K.Vishwanth had a central theme which ran across almost all his movie, that of middle class and art. Bapu on the other hand made a variety of movies ranging from mythological, historical all the way to revolutionary films. Having said that, if we have to look for a central theme in Bapu's movie

When I published the Part - 2 of this series, my friend and humorist K. Balakumar (@kbalakumar) asked me as to what happened to the ragamalika, 'Oru Naal Padhumaa'? I am sure many would ask that question as it is one of the very famous ragamalikas in Tamil Film Music history. The simple reason as to why that song didn't appear till now is because I have kept it for the third part of this series. In this I will deal with ragamalikas which are sung in some sort of competition and with ragamalikas used in dance sequences. Not only is 'Oru Naal Podhuma?' famous as a song but that whole segment in the movie 'Tiruvilayadal' culminating in 'Paatum Naane' via 'Isai Thamizh Nee Seidha Arum Sadhanai' is cult and has many followers. There are multiple reasons why 'Oru Naal Podhuma?' is remembered to this day: Mahadevan's superb tuning, Kannadasan's clever lyrics, Balamurali's effortless singing and above all Balaiah's out

In my earlier post on this same subject, I had explored Ragamalikas in film songs mainly taken from the mythological category. ( You can read that post here ) In this post we will explore Ragamalikas that were used in a social setting. Music directors have used ragamalikas in love songs. One way of going about is to equate the various ragas with the seasons. As the seasons change the ragas change. Also in the hands of an imaginative music director, changing ragas can also be used to depict various shades of love. The first ragamalika which was a India wide hit was 'haayi haayiga' from Suvarna Sundari. This song, its Tamil counterpoint and the Hindi version 'kuhu kuhu bole koyaliya' were super hits in their respective languages. Even to this day they are famous and the overall difficulty of the song, its great melody and the multiple ragas make it a favorite in singing competition. If you can negotiate this song without difficulty you must be a great singer. Tu

Akkineni Nageswar Rao passed away in the early hours of today succumbing to cancer. He is an actor whose memory will always be cherished by those who have watched his movies. ANR, as he was fondly called, along with N T Rama Rao was one of two super stars from 50 to the 70s. ANR was known for his sensitive portrayals and his tragic roles while N T R was known for his mythological roles in his initial days and for his loud roles in later days. The truth is both were equally at ease be it a comic role, mythological role, tragic role or a standard dancing hero role yet they got slotted into certain roles. Many of the roles Nageswar Rao played had a pan Indian appeal. Ofcourse he acted mostly in Telugu films and venturing once in a while to Tamil. The image of him as a tragic hero was cemented early in his career when he did 'Devadas'. Many believe that it was the best Devadas they have seen on screen. Better than Saigal, Dilip Kumar or Krishna (who remade it again in Tel

Continuing from last post where we saw the Carnatic great M L Vasanthakumari sing a film song, this post will have us listening to the redoubtable Amir Khan singing a film song. I knew that Amir Khan had sung in Baiju Bawra and had written about it in a post long time back. I did not know he has sung in this film called 'Khudito Pashan'.  Wiki says that this is a 1960 movie directed by Tapan Sinha. The music is by the sarod maestro, Ali Akbar Khan. So you have Amir Khan singing for Ali Akbar Khan. A nice combination. This song is based on the raga Bageshree. There is a commercially available recording of Amir Khan singing Bageshree, which is top class. Here, even though the song is only around 3 mins in duration, he paints a lovely picture of Bageshree. A nice tune by Ali Akbar Khan and sung wonderfully by Amir Khan. Pratima Bandopadyay joins for a couple of lines. Enjoy the song: Staying on the same theme, I will put up one more song. This time it is a song of Kishor