Shujaat Khan and Tejendra Narayan Majumdar present a sitar/sarod duet in the late afternoon raga Jog, which has a contemplative and poignant mood. With a growing understanding of each other's musical instincts, they transf... more »orm their individual musicianship into a vehicle for an engrossing aural experience, and have begun to break new ground in the evolution of the duet as an art form in North Indian classical music.« less
Shujaat Khan and Tejendra Narayan Majumdar present a sitar/sarod duet in the late afternoon raga Jog, which has a contemplative and poignant mood. With a growing understanding of each other's musical instincts, they transform their individual musicianship into a vehicle for an engrossing aural experience, and have begun to break new ground in the evolution of the duet as an art form in North Indian classical music.
CD Reviews
"Hate" to say this, but...ignore the one star reviewer.
Into | everywhereandnowhere | 03/03/2004
(3 out of 5 stars)
"Oh boy, here we go again. I own a lot of "world music" CD's, most of them Indian classical music, and I find it disheartening when I come across reviews like the other one here. Yes, everyone's entitled to their opinions, but please try to keep your personal, i.e. ethnic, i.e. regional, biases out of it. I studied sitar for two years, and have studied Indian music for several years, and I admire the gharana that Shujaat Khan came from, just as much as that Ravi Shankar came from; the latter is more of an instrumental style, the former is more vocal-oriented.Say you don't care for S. Khan's style as much as Ravi Shankar's, but there's no way this CD deserves a one-star review, under any circumstances. Don't poison other peoples' purchasing decisions with your personal prejudices toward one style, and against another. I've come across this kind of prejudice in Indian music circles before, and often it comes down to something as basic/base as one person being prejudiced toward a performer simply because their name sounds Muslim, or Hindu. Does this sound like a little microcosm of some of the social and political problems going on in the world today? Well this kind of thing is part of the root of it.Another thing is, if you read this reviewer's other reviews, many of them are laced with a similar prejudice. If you think the word prejudice is too strong...well, then let's just call it this person's strong predisposition AGAINST a certain performing style: three star reviews would indicate to me that it is simply a difference in taste, which I can respect; one star reviews for a respectable artist like Shujaat Khan indicate something a little deeper than that, i.e. a prejudice, which makes his review useless to most readers.Channel your obvious passion for music into something more constructive than your strong dislike--if not outright hatred--for a school of performance or lineage, that you do not feel an affinity with. These two performers thought enough of each other to make an album together, despite coming from different performing schools...one might be wise to follow their lead. Even if it is not opinions that change the world, whenever I happen upon these kinds of prejudices, I will do my damnedest to at least reveal them. Namaste. Om."
Very Enjoyable Light Classical
Jessie | Berkeley, CA | 03/20/2004
(4 out of 5 stars)
"While I agree that Tejendra is the superior musician here, it is ridiculously harsh to give this lovely recording only one star, as a previous reviewer has done TWICE. This is a fine performance of elegant, light classical music--very enjoyable on its own terms. It is definitely the best jugalbandi of the last twenty years. This pair is also the first and, so far, the only example of two masters from different schools performing together--and very successfully, too! I look forward to more of their jugalbandi recordings."
Simply Gorgeous
Into | 03/24/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Ignore the bickering, nitpicking reviews below and just click on the track samples and listen to this music. Gorgeous, isn't it?"
Who needs a life?
Into | everywhereandnowhere | 03/25/2004
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Yeah, this whole exchange is pretty pathetic...but it seems like no one's really reading what's going on here. It's not about making a big deal about a little album: it seems like it's about revealing prejudices disguised as opinions...then what happens?--another bigot comes along stereotyping people; and throwing stones from his glass house, about getting a life.Yeah, it's a good point that Amazon reviews are not the most effective forum for changing the world...but some of these reviews seem to be a microcosm of the world-threatening animosity that constantly afflicts certain parts of the planet. Before telling someone else to get a life, or feeling like you can label people conveniently based on a few words that they wrote, think about the life that felt a need to comment on it...especially to comment on it without knowing what was really going on in the exchange. Btw, not everyone from NoCal is a "new ager," but it's amusing to note that so many people think so--it's amazing how many people slam California, but keep right on moving here. Also, I believe the Scotsman was being ironic in invoking the name of the famous musicologist Sir Donald Tovey, to make a point about the reviewer using the name of the Indian musicologist...he was not being a "wannabe Scot royale," or whatever the inane comment was about his nationality. Interesting to note that we have multiple uninformed people writing hostile reviews here...kind of makes one wonder about the correlation between hostility and ignorance. I think Amazon needs to screen these reviews a little better."
Stop The Impostor!
Sir Donald Francis Tovey | Edinburgh, Scotland | 03/25/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"It is an unspeakable outrage that someone disparaging Ustad Shujaat Khan's talent should adopt as his nom-de-guerre the name of the great musician and scholar Herr Doctor Bashir Adam. How dare this impostor tarnish the name of the greatest twentieth-century scholar of Indian music!It is particularly ironic when one considers that the real Herr Doktor Bashir Adam was continually struggling to find adequate encomia for the astounding genius exhibited by Shujaat, whom Herr Doktor Adam perceived as the Indian equivalent of Mozart, Bach, and Paganini, all rolled into one. Take, for instance, his embarrassingly laudatory panegyric published in The South Asian Journal of Musicology (vol. XXIV, no. 2): "Even more than the incandescent Gerhardt von Friml, the magnificent Shujaat, whose shoes we are not worthy to kiss, is one of the great italicizers; no phrase is left solely to its own devices, and the range and diversity of his expressive gift is such that one is simply unable to chart an a priori stylistic course on his behalf. Much of the Affekt of intimacy--indeed, the sensation of eavesdropping on a private moment not yet wholly committed to its eventual public profile--is a direct result of our inablility to anticipate his intentions. As but one example, Shujaat can take a lightweight divertissement like Dhun Panchamsagara, find in it two descending scales, and wring from that routine cross-relation a moment of heartbreakingly transcendental intensity...Ultimately, we are too close to Shujaat to really evaluate him. Anything we may say about him now is the result either of guesswork or of blind faith or of reading into his views on historical evolution a depth we are not yet intellectually or spiritually equipped to understand. But if you want my guess, I should say that we will someday know indeed 'who he was': we will someday know that he was, beyond compare, the greatest, most divinely inspired musician and composer ever grace our wretched, unworthy planet."This brief excerpt (and it is but one of countless many extolling Shujaat's profound genius) is enough to expose the impostor reviewing here. Om. Shanti."
Track Listings (2) - Disc #1