What A Voice : An Ode to Barry White

If you have been having a look at our covers you may have noted the many words or adjectives usually used to describe a voice. Chuckled, you would have, when several of them were more than familiar and part of the regular vocab. And then comes this one called Barry White and the first thing you call out half shrieking and half choked, running out of the shower half-clothed - What a voice!
The romantic songs of Barry like “Just a Little Bit More” “Ecstasy (When You Lay down Next to me)”Your Sweetness Is My Weakness) among many others were the chosen ones of all those who once thought they were in love. His voice was rich, fresh and boom! Wickedly, he quite knew it, always-when very young.
Like most ambitious and self made talents he never wanted to be just a singer.”You get into trouble and the voice is not enough,” he had also always realized within and feared. He furthered his knowledge and skills of the studio by perfecting his writing and arranging skills and went on to become a successful producer. He learnt to play many instruments. Imagine him, yet, to be so vulnerable: the voice raved to be “thunder and silk”! People adored him; awards and recognition were too many to be remembered. So were his names from Dr Love to the Prince of Pillow Talk. He was the Lord of Discos in the 70’s to the Slow Jam king of 90’s with the deep- bass- velvet- feel voice of his.

Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata had swept him off his feet after the early lessons from the age of four he had received from his Mama and the phonograph, on sonatas, symphonies and melodies. He had begun to play the piano too and then as juvenile he went to jail. He came out as a man, as her Mama said and the school boy treble voice of Barry had changed forever to that of a heavy bass, male. His struggles took him to succeed finally with his group Love Unlimited. He had a way with women and knew a thing or two about sex though not very successful with marriages. Modesty was certainly not one of his strong points either.
You hear the Disco of Donna Summers or Abba or the Bee Gees. You dance. You hear Barry. You want to make love. His lyrics were direct: kind of face to face talking with another in a voice that seduced and made you swoon. Adrion Doovey was quoted in Jet thus “When he sings, strong men tremble and ladies are transported up the stairway of unparalled ecstasy,” and children “they say are often conceived that very night”. But the seventies Disco was to wither away and Barry knew it and through the eighties he mastered technology and getting ready to create a new sound. The drum should not sound like one. And so the piano, he had once famously prognosticated. He poured into synthesizers, computers, new fangled drum machines and programmers with piles of books. He mixed with and welcomed the new kids of the block filtered their anger and violence to produce a layered sound of slow raps over hip hop beats.R&B had found a new champion who was perhaps a shade bit ahead of the prevailing culture of the time. He was corpulent and huge, yet a highly sexualized figure in the age of disco,who just as easily morphed to become the god of Soul !

Sue Caroll gushed once upon seeing a man seated Buddha-like in a black velvet track suit… then the voice.”It starts as a rumble in his chest, it growls at the back of his throat, and then erupts like a volcano. It’s deep. It is dark. It is “Come to bed honey. Turn off the lights. It’s why this man-no oil painting- was called ,the King of Seduction “ Using his vocal chords, like instruments of sexual pleasure he does not so much sing as groan and moan his way through lyrics until finally, he explodes into a frenzy of passion and ooh..Lurve “

https://youtu.be/Fcd3XuQwDQQ

Sohail Hashmi : Playback of a golden voice

Mohammed Rafi My Abba: A Memoir by Yasmin Khalid Rafi; Tranquebar Press; 204 pages; Rs 250

In this country of almost a billion and a quarter you might find some people who have not heard of Mohammed Rafi. In such a scenario, My Abba: A Memoir, a book on the great singer written by his daughter-in-law Yasmin Khalid Rafi in its stream of conscience kind of technique, connects one to his life like no other book. Yasmin is writing about someone she idolised and loved, like only a daughter can. When she talks of him, a jumble of memories comes rushing back and surrounds her—the songs she liked, the music directors who worked with Rafi Saheb, his simplicity, his generousness, his love for his family, his insecurities, his inability to be flamboyant, the metamorphosis that transformed him into a great performer the moment he set foot on the stage.

Yasmin led a privileged life; she grew up loving the voice of Mohammed Rafi. While she listened to his magnificent voice, she created a mental image of the man who could always create magic with his incredible voice. A few years later, she got married to Mohammed Rafi’s favourite son. Her joy knew no bounds despite the fact that Khalid lived in London and she had to leave her family and India, she didn’t seem to be overly anxious about going to a strange land. She kept travelling back and in the 70s when Rafi Saheb began to visit London regularly, she got to spend more time with her parents-in-law.



My Abba talks about the man, his background, his deeply religious family, where singing and music were hardly the kinds of things that one indulged in. It also talks about the man who prayed regularly, fasted, performed the Haj, sang Hamds in praise of Allah and Na’ats in praise of Prophet Mohammad, was keen to sing at the shrine of a Sufi and when security concerns denied him the opportunity, was at ease singing late into the night at a friend’s house. The man could also be deeply hurt when his contribution to a mosque was not accepted because he had earned it through singing and in his hurt asked, “Who gave me this voice if not Allah?”

The book makes no attempt to be an “objective” soulless account of birth, childhood, education, struggle, success and the painful passing away kind of biography. It is a biography in the style of tazkirahs that have been written in Urdu and in Hindi about the well-known and the famous. It is also a biography of Yasmin. My Abba was not written in English. It was written because Yasmin’s children wanted her to put together her memories of her father-in-law. Yasmin did it in the only way she could, placing her memories, her observations of Rafi saheb, the man, the performer, the Sufi, the simple uncomplicated man who could not nurse a grudge, at times not even charging money for a song because the producers or the director told him that they had no money.

Read on :http://kafila.org/2013/04/24/playback-of-a-golden-voice

From Sex to the Super-conscious: The Beatles Experience

Our friend Nate Rabe this time on his Sunday musings enters the nether worlds of scandal,Sadhus, music and the Beatles.Those were very early days around the forties when the West had still not got over their fantasies about an India of elephants,trees, snakes and levitating Sadhus : an Incredible India of magic and undiscovered treasures.The Classical musicians and dancers like Uday Shanker, Ravi Shanker, the Vilayat Khans,Bauls some decades later were making their very own discoveries of a new ethos and culture of women, sex and drugs in the West.Both the West and the East seemed to have a need for each other looking for their own and sometimes contrarian Brave New Worlds.Money was playing the willing pimp for music, mysticism,fantasy and sometimes honest curiosity.
Aldous Huxley had discovered early the wonder that was India.Regrettably the 'mescaline drug' came in the way.The Beach Boys,David Lynch the avant garde film-maker,Clint Eastwood had come and gone seeing the Guru.Allen Ginsberg with the Bauls was also trying to make poetry from a new cosmic experience that was never happening.The Beatles had had enough of speed and fame .They were looking for a cooling off.
Drugs were not enough for 'highs"while closer home Hindustani Classical music was running out of its steady patrons of Nawabs, Zemindars,rajahs post the Independence.Both had its protagonists seeking relief and sometimes salvation from across their own shores far and away...
These stray connects are being made to remember a past in which native and foreign vulnerabilities abound which calls for better understanding and a lot of heart.Whether Beatles made better music because of Mahesh or their sojourn in India is moot.Let the fans decide.
Ah ! the new word 'priapic'.Learnt that one Nate sure.But was the Guru all about that ? Maybe the Farrow sisters were too sleepy to know. The Bhagwan Rajneesh phenomenon was just about on its way and pretty things of the better worlds had not quite finished with sex and looking for "super consciousness from crossed seminal fluids instead'.Everything was there sans music.Was then the phallus in the brains of the West or in the "lingams" worshipped over millennia in our backyards?

http://scroll.in/article/729488/across-the-universe-beatles-songs-about-their-disastrous-trip-to-rishikesh-in-1967

All That Jazz !

From historiography to musicology one takes tentative steps away from a natural sense of simple hearing to an understanding of the elements, syntax, vocabulary of some musical forms.In this instant case, it is all about Jazz and the month of May as celebration.Bartok and Stravinsky are better known today as this form of art is increasingly being studied at Conservatories and Universities,serious students with horn rimmed glasses have given it a more sober and scholarly feel away from the smoky,alcoholic and dark interiors that Jazz was known for.It is a kind of Chamber music heard in the drawing rooms and not for instinctive dancing on wide and crowded floors,anymore.

The birth of Jazz in the multicultural society of America has led intellectuals from around the world to hail Jazz as "one of America's original art forms".Difficult to define, write,( quite literally) suffice it is to say that Jazz is based more on performance, instinct and improvisation rather than a strict sense of grammar.
Hence so much of discussion has gone on in defending it as a very valid art form.

Here in this do-it-yourself kind of Ted Talk on Jazz the celebrated Leonard Bernstein insightfully talks of its essentials and delves on the melody,Scales major and minor, rhythm,accents,syncopation,tonal colours, instruments imitating the vocal chords with interesting comparisons from select classic Jazz pieces.He talks of the structure of Blues as a strict poetic form with music and naughtily reminds us that it's themes are also about happiness and not just being 'blue.' As a respected conductor and composer of Western Classical music he tells us with understated authority how Jazz is about Instruments that are like the voices and its sounds in the Louis Armstrong use of the trumpets.Jazz is about tonal colours, harmony and form of the quintessential African sound.And the need to be able to distinguish tricky imitations by the plungers in the trombone,the vibratos,Afro-Cuban bongo drums,Cuban cowbells,and the Oriental cymbals and vibraphone.

Interestingly, Jazz is not about composers but players and improvisers.The notations are difficult to write but experimented with.It is while playing that Jazz seeks its own path segueing to the design, innovation and creativity of the performer of the day.In fact the new form of 'simultaneous Jazz',two different musicians on two different instruments duel and match like a Q&A session is also talked about in the video essay.And it is in these two areas Hindustani music and Jugal Bandi forms seem to resonate sounds familiar and convergent with Jazz

.And maybe, that is why our music finally travelled to the west, be it a Ravi Shanker, a Ustad Allaudin Khan or a Purna Das Baul.And maybe that is why so much came back home in terms of new sounds and ideas with their creative fusion !

For those like me who know very little : hear this spirited defence of Jazz and why it is legitimate Art for America and the world from someone who knows.

http://www.openculture.com/2015/04/leonard-bernsteins-introduction-to-jazz.html