March 30, 2014 – The world is too small? or Is it?

Welcome to March 2014 edition of Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music.

For the period under review, we have two excellent compilations w.r.t. Talat Mahamood birth anniversary on 24^th February, 2014, from none other than Songs Of Yore.

The first of the articles – The Mentor and the Protégé: Talat Mahmood songs by Anil Biswas – commemorates Talat Mahamood’s 90^th birth day. While Anil Biswas was not the most prolific with Talat Mahmood as compared to C Ramchandra, Ghulam Mohammad and Madan Mohan, he remains the most important composer for him, so much so that you mention Talat Mahmood and Anil Biswas comes to mind.
The article that follows on SoY, is also about an equally rare combination of Talat Mahmmod’s Hindi Songs career – with S D Burman : Talat Mahmood’s songs by SD Burman. Talat Mahmood had only about 15 songs with S D Burman, a fraction of the songs SDB has with Mohammad Rafi and Kishore Kumar. But his impact was way beyond his numbers, and SD Burman created several immortal songs with him, as he did with Mukesh with about the same number of songs, as can be seen in this article and comments thereto.

These two articles lead us to search for a retrospective on similar articles on Talat Mahmood. Surprisingly, during the searches, one comes up either to vanilla Talat Mahamood songs catalogues or vanilla playlists, but not very incisive analyses that looks at Talat Mahmood’s career with different music directors at different phases / periods of the Golden Era of the Hindi Film Music.

In Remembering Talat Mahmood, Avijit Ghosh reminisces mass hysteria when he arrived in Trinidad in West Indies on a concert tour in 1968. Fans thronged the roads from the airport to the city. The local group, West Indies Steel Band, composed a Calypso track in his honour. They sang, “Talat Mahmood we are proud and glad, to have a personality like you here in Trinidad”.
Shammi Kapoor Clears A Misconception! Talat Mahmood Was My First Hit Singer (not Mohd Rafi !!!) in the TV documentary “SHAMMI KAPOOR UNPLUGGED – Episode – 52” ( in that ) his first hit singer was actually ‘KING OF GHAZALS’ TALAT MAHMOOD throughout the 50’s who gave him a host of hit songs in his movies like “THOKAR”, “MEMSAHIB”, “NAQAAB”, “SIPAH SALAR”, “MEHBOOBA”, “CHOR BAZAAR”,”LAILA MAJNU” and “MOHAR”.
Shri L.K. ADVANI ji’ s daughter PRATIBHA ADVANI who is a huge fan of TALAT MAHMOOD produces and comperes this lovely video documentary –“YAADEN” – TALAT MAHMOOD !.”
Shri L.K. Advani ji’s brother-in-law MANEK PREMCHAND brings out the best of ‘KING OF GHAZALS’ TALAT MAHMOOD in an exclusive 2 hour interview with his singer son KHALID !
In an excerpt – The Discordant Notes, The Telegraph, October 17, 2010 – from A Journey Down Memory Lane, famed Hindi Film journalist Raju Bharatan states that Anil Biswas had prevailed upon music DAAG (1952) director duo of Shanker Jaikishan to make way for Talat Mamood as THE playback singer for the film’s hero – Dilip Kumar.
From amongst, several Talat Mahmood video songs-clips, here is one that is rare and one of the very last in Talat Mahmood’s Hindi Film song career: Tap Tup Tap Tup Boonde Barse – from a 1982 bilingual film ARTAP.
Dusted Off presents us two different windows on Talat Mahamood.

The first one is a post written 4 years before, on Talat Mahmood’s 86^th birthday – Ten of my favourite Talat Mahmood songs.

The second one is a review of Nakli Nawab(1962), in terms of an observation that films’s music Director, Babul, has used three playback singers for the hero – Manoj Kumar – in the film.

Talat Mahmood, in a duet with Asha Bhosle – Mast Aankhen Hai Ke Paimaane

Mukesh in Phoolon Se Rangeen Zameen Hai

And two of Mohammad Rafi classics – Tum Poochhati Ho Ishq Bhala Hai Nahin and Chheda Jo Dil Ka Fasana

Well, now that we have jumped over to Mohammad Rafi track, let us continue our present journey on that track and fathom what we have in store this month in so far as Mohammad Rafi is concerned.

Jabberwock returns to an infrequent series about old song sequences (some earlier entries Aashirwad, “Rail Gaadi” and the vitality of the well-done song sequence; the pleasures of “Saaf Karo Insaaf Karo and Cold water for Devdas – song sequences in Biwi aur Makaan) with thoughts on “Tere Mere Sapne” from Guide , in the article “Tere Mere Sapne”, a visual treat.

“Hindi cinema has a long history of the song sequence as a declaration of love or commitment, but rarely has it been done as well as it is here. This sequence lasts more than four minutes, but it is made up of only three shots, which increase progressively in length – in other words, there are only two cuts in the whole scene. While the song in itself is one of the loveliest we have ever had, the visualisation shows Vijay Anand’s talent for using the long, unbroken take to add dramatic intensity and continuity to a given situation.”

Shri Ashok Dave has presented one more of a rare combination of Mohammad Rafi with a music director who did not get due that his talent deserved – Lachhiram (Tamar) , through songs of Main Suhagan Hoon (1964) :

Two duets with Asha Bosle

Interestingly in such a Mohammad Rafi dominated film we have a Talat Mahmood solo – Ye Kis Manzil Pe Le Aayee Meri Badkismati Mujhko.

And of course, the film has a very pleasant Lata Mangeshkar number – Aye Dil Machal Machal Ke Yoon, Rota Hai Zaar Zaar Kya.

From now on, we will also document here songs that our friend, Bhagwan Thavraniforwards via his emails or SMSes. This month we have:

Chandrama Ja Unse Keh Do – Bharat Milap – Lata Mangeshkar, Mahender Kapoor
Tumhi Ne Dil Mera – Air Mail (1960) – Mohammad Rafi, Suman Kalyanpur – Music Director – Sardul Quatra.
Interestingly here too, we have a Mohammad Rafi solo Jo Aaj Tak Hua Na – Gule Bakawali 1963 – Music Director – Hansraj Behl, as well as a Talat Mahmood solo JIYUNGA JAB TALAK– CHINGARI(1955) – Music Director Manohar

We now go back to our regular track of playlists featuring Hindi Films songs with a focused subject.

My Favourites: Songs in Disguise –“would have only disguised heroes, not heroines (who could be disguised or not, if they were part of the duets), and b) the hero had to be singing, not just remain a spectator. And, oh, just for me, because I like making things difficult for myself – only one song per hero.”
Ten of my favourite wind songs – “There have been songs addressed to the wind, songs about the wind. Here are ten of my favourites, in no particular order. The only restrictions I’ve imposed on myself are: (a) As always, the song should be from a film I’ve seen, from before the 1970s And (b) the song should have a word synonymous with wind (hawa, saba, pawan, etc) in the first line of the song.”
SoY had done a very interesting article Suman Kalyanpur outshines Lata Mangeshkar on October 4, 2010. The purpose of recalling this article is one of the recent comments by Rakesh Srivastava as well as discussions linked to that comment. These discussions provide us a wealth of Suman Kalayanpur songs. The comment by AM has meticulously listed Suman Kalyanpur’s songs composed by Shanker Jaikishan.
In Magic of Raj Kapoor and Shanker Jaikishen, rsbaab has presented an interesting analysis, certainly predominant in RK-SJ films, but nonetheless went on become hallmark of SJ’s style elsewhere too. SJ’s extensive use of preludes, blend of harmony + tempo in the orchestration, descending notes of mukhda line in the higher notes and gradually make each line of the mukhda end on a lower note , very heart tugging lyrics, use of rich and full-bodied tone instrumentsand appealing (folk) dances .
Bollyviewer @ Old Is Gold has now moved to a new address – Masala Punch. We take that opportunity to visit an earlier post My favorite piano-songs, where in at least one character is actually playing the piano.

March is the month of Holi- which is not only the festival of colours by also of spoofs- somewhat alike what West does on 1^st of April.

SoY has taken the opportunity to sprinkle a dash of A ‘serious’ review of Sangam (1964) in its Golden Jubilee Year and seriously analyses how ‘Raj Kapoor overturns Bollywood triangle to convey profound social messages’.

Dances on Footpath has added two wonderful images to celebrate the spirit of Holi.

We sign off the current edition of the blog carnival while Dusted Off explores some known advantages of blogging before diving deep into The funny side of blogging.