Abdul Halim Jaffer Khan

Found this great article about Ustad Abdul Halim Jaffer Khan on Hindu:

Seamless continuity

Halim Jaffer Khan is one of the most respected figures of Hindustani classical music. His sitar playing has a distinct identity of its own while retaining a traditional form. An interactive compact disc-cum-book on the intricacies of the Jafferkhani Baaj is to be released soon. KAMALA GANESH writes on the maestro's style of music.

EVEN half-a century ago, Halim Jaffer Khan's playing of the sitar had signalled the electric fusion of technical virtuosity and innovative excitement that sets Jafferkhani Baaj apart as a distinct style.

The santoor legend Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma recollects: "It was probably 1955 or 1956. I was on the terrace on my home in Jammu. In the still of the night I heard the swaras of chaayanat on sitar from my neighbour's radio. I instantly noted that the tone was totally different and the style of playing radically unique. I rushed to switch on my radio... I was very curious to know who this maestro was." He was not alone. Many others across the country shared this sense of excitement and curiosity.

It did not take long for Jafferkhani Baaj to receive recognition and get established. The baaj was distinguished for the spontaneity with which a variety of techniques, stylistic elements and choices of repertoire blended together to form a coherent and comprehensive system.

At the core of Jafferkhani Baaj is the creation of fractions within a beat or matra and embellishment of the fractions with multiple notes produced through a variety of techniques. Some are new, some known but rarely used, and yet others commonly used, all combined in distinctive ways. The techniques he has developed are inherent in the sitar, but he can coax hitherto unheard of sounds from the instrument, fresh and vibrant. The same notes produced through different techniques have different tonal qualities. The micro divisions of time are densely packed: 4 to 12 and on occasion 16 notes, within one stroke of the mizrab or striker. This requires needle-sharp playing skills, high speed and an assured grip and control over rhythm. Because of this, the work of the left hand is much more elaborate and evolved than in normal sitar play. Halim Jaffer Khan has worked to extend the limits of the possible within the structure of the instrument.

Years ago, Khan saheb recollects, his father explained the concept of awareness for a musician - "Your eyes have to be in the fingers". The precise ways in which techniques and skills are actually deployed have to do with the particular raga's inner personality and demands, and the rhythmic structure of the gat. In his understanding of these, Halim Jaffer Khan undoubtedly draws from the Indore beenkar gharana where he, in a sense, belongs. While he rejects the constricting effect that claims of purity and exclusivity by a gharana can lead to, his baaj is worked out from within the raga and tala parameters. Jafferkhani Baaj is thus, simultaneously innovative, and yet squarely in the classical tradition, in whatever way one might choose to define these two elusive terms. But rather than cast these two qualities as polarities, it seems more appropriate to see him as a naturally composite musician: an accomplished and original performer, reflective practitioner and accessible teacher at the same time.

Ustad Halim Jaffer Khan has an intimate engagement with musical ideas, and with the Sufi-Hindu spiritual, philosophical and meditative context of Hindustani music. He has read and assimilated ideas from and interacted with other forms of musics. In him, one gets an unmistakeable sense of what one could call, in the broadest sense, a syncretic tradition: he embodies it as a highly individualistic musician, but also as an heir to the Muslim-Hindu musical culture of North India. This quality pervades his personality and also his baaj.

The filigree-like weaves and embellishments in Jafferkhani Baaj are created through imaginative and complex ideas. Swiftness of finger movements is a sine qua non, but not at the expense of clarity. The separate notes are audible and accessible, no matter how many are crammed into a beat. The chaap ka ang exemplifies this quality. Playing up to 12 notes over two or three strings without slowing down and yet without fuzziness. At the same time, the baaj deliberately eschews excessive sound effects that can send the listener into a trance. At no moment does it coerce listeners into suspending their discriminating faculties. This is part of the process of being open and allowing access.

Khan Saheb's preference for kan over meend and meend over gamak is also a pointer to a preference for brisk play. His stylistic contributions are not arbitrary but have certain underlying reasons, in keeping with the total personality of the Jafferkhani Baaj. For example, the insistence on playing jhala only once, a departure from normal practice, relates to his reluctance to over-dramatise by repeating climaxes. He is open to articulating the logic of his choices and does not mystify them. His painstaking differentiation of subtechniques within techniques, his insistence on clarifying terms and their precise definitions, and his distaste for playing without knowing what one is playing, suggest a keen analytical mind.

Halim Jaffer Khan's rendering of Sufiana ang in his performances invoke a magical atmosphere where the baaj and its techniques, though still being played, vanish from one's conscious awareness. He recollects how he kept his distance from the Sufi phenomenon of music-induced kaifiyat or "madness" till he experienced it himself. That altered his perceptions. At his home, icons of Saraswati provide the backdrop for Islamic devotion and austerities practised by family members. His father was a religious man. He was a singer, sitariya and also a beenkar who used to play with one finger. Seeing that the boy Halim was reluctant to sing, he gave him a toy sitar and asked him to practise the whole day except during the five daily prayer times. He used to attend quawwalis, ghazals and classical music performances with his father. The music that is etched in his memory from those days is the music that touched his heart: from musicians like Roshanara Begum, Kesarbai Kerkar and Barkat Ali Khan, younger brother of Bade Gulam Ali Khan.

Ustad Halim Jaffer Khan's source gharana - Indore gharana - started its parampara from the later half of the 18th century. It includes ustads like Bande Ali Khan, Murad Khan, Abdul Latif Khan, Babu Khan, (all beenkars), Rajab Ali Khan (vocal) and Musharraf Khan (sitariya). Young Halim was groomed by his father Ustad Jaffer Khan and later by his uncle Ustad Mehboob Ali Khan, an expert been player. In a way, he has a connection with Kirana gharana, because one of his teachers, beenkar Babu Khan was, himself, a disciple of Bande Ali Khan who was a rudra veena player and exponent of the Kirana gharana. Halim Jaffer Khan says his art has also been influenced by Rajjab Ali Khan, Amanat Khan and Jhande Khan. He himself does not give much emphasis on gharana. He believes that there is only one gharana for music: samvedi or saraswati gharana.

Jafferkhani Baaj shows the strong imprint of the beenkar gharana in techniques like chhap ke ang and ulti meend. Halim Jaffer Khan's contributions, apart from the baaj itself, are in the direction of opening up the sitar to varied influences. He has revived lost ragas like Shyam kedaar, Champakali, Rajeswari, Hijaaj and Fargana and is credited with inventing new ones like Chakradhun, Kalpana, Madhyami, Khusrowani.

He has brought ragas, like Latangi, Kanakangi, Keervani, Karaharapriya, Manavati, Ganamurthi, popular in Carnatic music, into the repertoire of sitar. But the interpretation is Hindustani, in fact Jafferkhani. On a good day, he will show you on sitar how the raga is played in the Carnatic styles. He shows the precise points of divergence, the stretching and rocking of each and every note, but that is a spirit of fun. He was the first Hindustani musician to do a jugalbandi with a Carnatic musician, the veena maestro Emani Sankara Sastry.

The "echo" - a characteristic opening of his baaj - exemplifies the principles of polyphony and harmonics but blends ingenuously with the alaap that follows. Again, in certain ragas, he plays on two strings simultaneously (the baaj string and the next one), producing the "chord effect" popular on guitar. This is not so easy to play on the sitar, due to the length of the keyboard, and he is careful not to turn it into a gimmick.

As a child he heard Ustad Barkat Ali Khan sing. The young Halim Jaffer Khan's heart was touched by the melody of his Pahadi dhun, at that time considered to be an enchanting, lilting but folkish tune. He incorporated it into the Hindustani classical repertoire, giving it the formalistic treatment of Jafferkhani Baaj. His rendering of raga Pahadi is considered a lifetime achievement.

Halim Jaffer Khan has played sitar in Hindi films like "Anarkali", "Mughal-e-Azam", "Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje" under music directors like Vasant Desai, C. Ramchandra, Madan Mohan, Naushad. He says that playing for films was, in fact, more difficult because as a classical performer in a concert, one is the master of the raga whereas, in films, music has to match the visual aspect and has to be coordinated among a variety of instruments. Yet he does not see it as conflicting with his primary pursuit.

Halim Jaffer Khan often talks of the tolerant and assimilative tendencies of religion and culture in India and compares their flexibility with the flexibility of the sitar frets - which "you adjust to get whatever notes you want". The synthesis of sufi and bhakti streams in Hindustani music as a symbol of the fruitful coming together of Islamic and Hindu cultural codes is one of the stock examples that are given, when looking back at our shared histories for inspiration in these troubled times. He is a living exemplar of this syncretic history for which that other weaver - Kabir - was a source.

The author is a Reader in Sociology, Mumbai University.