FULLER UP HOME GRIM REAPER PAGE CAUSES OF DEATH SEARCH BY NAME GET IN TOUCH SHAMEFUL DISCLAIMER    Fuller Up The Dead Musician Directory    Ustaad Allarakha Khan Alla Rakha Quereshi Ustad Alla Rakha February 3, 2000 Age 80 Heart Attack    OBITUARY  BIOGRAPHY   LINKS  Buy or Hear the Music         Editor's Pick:  The Ultimate in Taal-Vidya

OBITUARY 

Music greats bid fare well to Ustad Allarakha  News By A Staff Reporter Sports Diary Mumbai, (PTI):    When he moved from his village near Jammu to learn tabla from Mian Kader Bux  at the age of 11, he was a non-entity. In Bombay When he died yesterday,  Ustad Allarakha Khan, the country's leading tabla exponent of the Punjab gharana,  who raised the tabla to the status of a solo instrument, was perhaps the greatest  known exponent of the percussion instrument.  Born on April 29, 1919, at Phagwal  village of Jammu, Khan was fascinated with the sound of the tabla since the age of  12, when he was staying with his uncle at Gurdaspur.  He learnt 'Raag Vidya' (melody aspect) from Ustad Ashiq Ali Khan of the Patiala Gharana. He started his career as  an All India Radio Style staffer in Mumbai in 1940, and later composed music for a  couple of Hindi films from 1943-48. Khan made his first international stage appearance in Japan in 1958, along with Pandit Ravi Shanker. With Khan on the tabla and Ravi on  the First sitar, the jugalbandi created a rare blend of music, making waves internationally.  In Mumbai, he taught students the finer aspects of the tabla at his 'Ustad Allarakha Khan  Institute of Music' at Shivaji Park.  Among his acclaimed disciples are his three sons -  tabla wizard Zakir Hussain, Fazal Quereshi and Taufiq Quereshi - and Mick Hart, a   US-based drummer of international fame.   Khan was honoured with the Padma Shri in  1977 and was the recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi award in 1982.  When he  felicitated Pandit Jasraj on the latter's 70th birthday at Shanmukhananda Hall in Mumbai  recently, he was asked to speak some lines. He responded with a series of tabla bols,  declaring, "This is the only language I know."      BOMBAY, India (AP) - Allarakha Khan, the best-known player of the tabla, or Indian drum, died early Thursday, his family said. He was 81.   His family said the musician, who used only the name Allarakha, died shortly after learning of his daughter's death. Family members said he was shocked by the news and suffered a heart attack at his home.   He and his daughter Razia, 51, who had suffered from a heart ailment, will be buried Friday.   Allarakha made his international debut in Japan in 1964, playing with Indian sitar maestro Ravi Shankar. The duo helped popularize Indian music abroad and sold out concerts both in India and elsewhere.   Allarakha also composed music for popular Hindi films in the 1960s. Over the last few years, he taught music at an institute he set up in Bombay.   At his birthday party last year, Allarakha was asked to say a few words. He played the tabla instead.   ``This is the language I know,'' he told the audience.   Allarakha is survived by his wife, three sons and a daughter. One of his sons, Zakir Hussain, also is an internationally known tabla player and one of India's most successful recording artists.   NY TIMES           Ustad Alla Rakha, 80, Master of Hindustani Classical Music            By JON PARELES                   Ustad Alla Rakha, the most important tabla drummer of his                 generation, died Thursday at his home in Bombay. He was 80.             He had a heart attack when he learned of the death of his daughter Razia            during cataract surgery, said a spokesman for Moment Records and            Zakir Hussain Management, which releases albums by Mr. Rakha and            his son Zakir Hussain, who also plays the tabla.             Alla Rakha, who was given the honorific Ustad as a master musician and            teacher, was a virtuoso of the complex system of talas, rhythmic cycles            that are central to Hindustani classical music, and he used his skill to            invigorate every musician who shared the stage with him.             "All life is rhythm," he once said in an interview. Sitting calmly, with his            hands a blur of speed above his drums, he traded smiles and dazzling,            incendiary improvisations with leading figures in Indian music, among            them the sitar players Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan and Ali Akbar Khan.             He was also the first tabla player to give solo concerts.             "The country has lost an accomplished maestro whose mastery over the            tabla created waves all over the world," the prime minister of India, Atal            Bihari Vajpayee, said in a statement. "He strode like a colossus on the            scene of Indian classical music."             Alla Rakha Qureshi was a farmer's son who grew up in a small village in            the Jammu region of Punjab. He was drawn to music and theater as a            child, and began studying music against his parents' wishes.             His first tabla teacher, Lal Mohamed, was a disciple of Mian Qader            Bakshi, a leading musician in the Punjab gharana, or school, of classical            music. When he was 12 he ran away from home to study with Mr.            Bakshi in Lahore, in what is now Pakistan.             He began performing on Lahore Radio, and in 1936 he moved to Delhi            to work for All India Radio, and then to Bombay. During the 1930's he            studied raga singing with Ustad Ashiq Ali Khan of the Patiala gharana.             He also married a cousin, Bavi Begum.             In 1943 he began working in the Bombay film industry as a music            director for Rangmahal Studios, and he provided music for two dozen            films in Hindi and Punjabi.             He performed with Mr. Shankar, who also worked for All India Radio,            in the 1940's, and their partnership carried Hindustani classical music            beyond India's borders.             He made a percussion album with the jazz drummer Buddy Rich, and he            performed with Mr. Shankar at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and            at the first Woodstock festival in 1969.             Although he occasionally collaborated with Western musicians, he was            revered for his classical performances.             In recent years he had devoted much of his time to teaching. His three            sons -- Mr. Hussain, Fazal Qureshi and Taufiq Qureshi -- are all tabla            players, and he ran a music school, the Alla Rakha Institute of Music, in            Bombay. He estimated that he had hundreds of students.             In addition to his wife and sons, he is survived by another daughter,            Kurshid Aulia of London, and nine grandchildren.

 

 

BIOGRAPHY

All-Music Guide    Alla Rakha Quereshi, born April 29, 1919, at Ratangarh, near Jammu in India, is one of the leading   accompanists and tabla soloists of Hindustani music. He is also vocalist, harmonium player and   composer. He rose to fame through his work as Ravi Shankar's accompanist in the 1960s and   1970s when Shankar's music was finding a new, international audience. Since record-keeping at the   time of his birth tended to be hit-and-miss affairs -- often little more than a season or in proximity to   a holy day -- his birth date is approximate, borne out by the fact that he celebrated his 75th birthday   in Bombay on January 15, 1994.    Quereshi's musical interests were fueled by the traveling theatrical entertainments that would pass   through the Jammu region, and eventually, he ran away from home to Lahore in present-day   Pakistan. There he lived with his uncle and eventually took formal tuition; fortunately, his skills were   recognized early on. Unusually, he studied under Mian Kadur Bukhsh for tabla and under Ashiq Ali   Khan for voice. He went to work with All India Radio (AIR) at its Delhi location in 1936 with the   famous broadcaster Z.A. Bokhari. He worked in other locations for AIR before leaving the   company in 1943 for the movie industry where he composed and performed music to meet the   insatiable demand for cinematic entertainment. In time he moved on to classical music. He was   especially known for his work with two of the subcontinent's finest sitarists, having worked with both   Vilayat Khan and Ravi Shankar. Alla Rakha went on to record extensively with Ravi Shankar. He   also made a mark as a world class percussionist with his early East-West collaboration with   American jazz drummer Buddy Rich on Rich à la Rakha (World Pacific WPS 21453) and the solo   Tabla! (WPS 21458).   He remains one of the supreme percussionists of Northern Indian music and like his sons, Zakir   Hussain and Fazal Quereshi, he has given birth to a new style of tabla playing which has elevated the   role of tabla player from the relatively lowly accompanist to soloist. Many listeners expect the   flamboyance and panache of their cross-rhythms and compare other players' styles unfavorably to   that of Alla Rakha and his sons. It is a relatively recent trend, fast becoming the norm. Exciting   musically and visually arresting, it has been carbon dated to the 1960s and the emergence of a new   wave of soloists bringing new levels of stagecraft to the concert podium. -- Ken Hunt, All Music   Guide

 

LINKS

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