Signature Series Vol. 1


Signature Series, Volume One
The Signature Series is Ustad Ali Akbar Khan's collective works from the legendary Connoisseur Society. They originally were recorded in the 60's by David Jones on 1/2 inch, 2-channel tape operation at 30 ips using Sony C37 microphones and Ampex tape machines with custom-built, vacuum-tube recording electronics and mixer. Ustad Ali Akbar Khan's memorable music in these 11 releases helped to create a new generation of listeners and students of North Indian Classical Music. The original master tapes have been lovingly re-mastered by Bob Ludwig at Masterdisk, with Mark Levinson of Cello, Ltd. The Cello Audio Suite was used as the pate playback head preamplifier in the re-mastering process. All "Signature Series" releases will be available on the AMMP label.

Rag Chandranandan
Virtually synonymous with the name Ali Akbar Khan, this rag was composed one evening rather hastily in a recording session early in his career and released on a 3-minute 78 rpm disc. He then spent three years learning the rag from the recording. It combines four Kaushi ragas: Nandakauns, Chandrakauns, Malkauns, and Kaushi-Kanara. The result is a powerful rag whose atmosphere "is of looking out into the universe on a full moon night." The name of the rag means "the playing of the full moon."
Evening Rag

Rag Gauri Manjari
Gauri Manjari is also a composition of Khansahib's: an extremely complex rag which uses all the notes of the scale, except for the flat third, komal Ga. The parent rag Gauri has several musical relatives in the ragas of sunset, and one of the most important is the rag Lalita Gauri. These two very devotional and serious ragas are behind the manjari "bouquet" of this rag. In Rag Gauri Manjari you can see all of the forms of Mother Kali. The recording is alap only, without tabla accompaniment.
Evening Rag

Rag Jogiya Kalingra
Jogiya and Kalingra are two morning ragas which are joined together to create a single rag. One of the unique features of the rag combination is the beauty of the flatted seventh degree, komal ni, and the way it is approached from below in a curved pattern. A similar approach to the third degree, shuddh ga, is sometimes mirrored in the lower tetrachord. The mood is devotion mixed with pathos, and the time is very early in the morning, before the sun appears. Morning Rag

Compact DiscCD9001$15.95
CassetteCA9001$9.98



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