Sultan Khan | |
|---|---|
 Sultan Khan in 2009 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 15 April 1940 |
| Origin | Rajasthan, India |
| Died | 27 November 2011 (aged 71) |
| Genres | Hindustani classical music |
| Occupation | Sarangi player |
| Instrument | Sarangi |
| Years active | 1960 – 2009 |
| Formerly of | Tabla Beat Science,Zakir Hussain |
UstadSultan Khan (15 April 1940 – 27 November 2011) was an Indiansarangi player andclassical vocalist belonging toSikar Gharana. He was one of the founding members of the Indian fusion groupTabla Beat Science, withZakir Hussain andBill Laswell. He was awarded thePadma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honour, in 2010.[1][2][3]
Sultan Khan was born on 15 April 1940 inSikar District,Rajasthan, a princely state in theIndian Empire.[1][4] He learned sarangi from his father Ustad Gulab Khan.[5][6]
Sultan Khan started his career at theAll India Radio station,Rajkot inGujarat as a 20-year-old boy in 1960. After having spent eight years in Rajkot very happily, he got a chance to play withLata Mangeshkar during her visit to Rajkot. She asked him to play the sarangi while she sang. This proved a turning point for him and his career. Thereafter, he was transferred to the Mumbai radio station. Having joined the Mumbai radio, he was not only deeply involved with the Mumbai classical music circuit but also with film industry music.[7][8]
He gave his first performance at the All-India Music Conference at the age of eleven,[6][1] and has performed on an international scale withRavi Shankar onGeorge Harrison's 1974 Dark Horse World Tour.[9][6][8]
He has had the good fortune of accompanying all the great music maestros likeUstad Amir Khan,Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Pt.Omkarnath Thakur,Ustad Nazakat Ali Khan-Salamat Ali Khan of Pakistan,Kishori Amonkar,Zakir Hussain and many others. He also performed on-stage with the sitar playerRavi Shankar and tabla playerAlla Rakha at the classical music concerts. He is acknowledged both as a sarangi player and a vocalist and has several albums to his credit.[7][8][1]
He has taught music producers such asSukshinder Shinda andRam Gopal Varma (who provided the music for his film,Deyyam) to play thesarangi. He had many students, but few gandhabandh disciples are Bollywood music composer & DirectorVishal Bhardwaj, Sandesh Shandaliya, composerIlaiyaraaja,Gurdas Maan,Falu, Anand Vyas,Ikram Khan, Vinod Pawar, Sabir khan, Dilshad Khan, andDeeyah, a Norwegian-born singer, and he performed on her debut albumI Alt Slags Lys in 1992.[10][8]
He played sarangi forR. D. Burman too.[11]
He contributed vocals andsarangi to Dizrhythmia's first LP andGavin Harrison's 1998 solo album Sanity & Gravity. He sang "Albela Sajan Aayo Re..."along withKavita Krishnamurthy andShankar Mahadevan in the Hindi filmHum Dil De Chuke Sanam in 1999. He has also given his voice in films likeMaqbool,Kachche Dhaage,Mr. and Mrs. Iyer,Parzania,Jab We Met,Agni Varsha,Superstar, Rahul andPaanch. He also performed or recorded with Pakistani qawwali singerNusrat Fateh Ali Khan.[8][1]
In 1982, the Oscar-winning filmGandhi also featured his music and thereafter he recorded for otherHollywood films such asHeat and Dust in 1983 (Merchant Ivory productions). Sultan Khan played the sad sarangi music during the sorrowful scenes ofMahatma Gandhi's assassination and funeral.[8] In 1993, he performed along with UstadAlla Rakha and UstadZakir Hussain in one of the rooms at theHouse of Commons of the United Kingdom where eminent persons were in attendance to witness a rare musical performance. After that, he became a regular artist forBBC Radio London. He was also interviewed for the BBC world service and also composed the musical track for the BBC 2 documentary "London Calling"(1997).[8][1]
The association with film makerIsmail Merchant further when Ustad Sultan Khan together with Ustad Zakir Hussain composed the soundtrack for the filmIn Custody (1993) and where the musical score adapted to suite a particular genre of theUrdu language. Thereafter, Ustad Sultan Khan also composed musical score for another Merchant Ivory production, this time for Channel 4 in Britain, called "The Street Musician of Bombay".[8]
He has several albums to his credit and he has been applauded by for his performances byMadonna in 1997. He also performed in a Sufi Music Festival at theWhite House in Washington, D. C. in 1998. He played at a select party in honour of thePrince of Wales's birthday atBuckingham Palace in 1997.[8][1]
Sultan Khan appeared onGood People in Times of Evil in 2000 withJonas Hellborg and guitar virtuosoShawn Lane. Sultan Khan once told an interviewer, "Western influences have given a different dimension to my music."[1]
Ustad Sultan Khan's albumPiya Basanti together with indian playback singerK. S. Chitra was released in 2000 and it was the number one album of the year. The title song won an international viewers' choice award at the 2001MTV Video Music Awards. Some of his other famous albums areUstad & the Divas(T-Series), Ustad Sultan Khan & his friends (Times Music), Shoonya (BMG), Bhoomi (Virgin), and Pukaar (Sony Music) withUstad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.[3][1]
Sultan Khan performed for theTamil filmYogi. He played a solosarangi forYogi's theme and also for the song "Yaarodu Yaaro" from the same album.
British writerGeoff Dyer has said that he is an admirer of Sultan Khan's work, especially his rendition of a Rajastani folk song at the end of a 1991 recording ofRag Bhupali with Zakir Hussain on tabla. He has written of Khan's performance, "It is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I know - an audible vision of how the world might appear if you were able to purge yourself of all baseness and ugliness."[8][12]
His last musical offering along with his sonSabir Khan will be used in the upcomingmultilingual filmAmma which is being directed bycontroversial directorFaisal Saif.
He is survived by his wife Bano, sonSabir Khan who is his disciple and asarangi player, as well as two daughters Reshma and Shera. His brother Late Nasir Khan was a sitar player, as is his younger brother Niyaz Ahmed Khan. His nephews include Salamat Ali Khan (sitar player), Imran Khan (sitar player and music composer), Dilshad Khan (sarangi player) and Irfan Khan (sitar player).
Sultan Khan died on 27 November 2011 inMumbai,Maharashtra, India after a prolonged illness.[6][7][1] His death occurred on the eve of the 11th anniversary of the release of his album, Piya Basanti Re.
He was undergoingkidney dialysis for the last four years and lost his speech in the last few days of his life. He died on his way to the hospital. The funeral was held in his hometown ofJodhpur,Rajasthan on 28 November 2011.[7]
The New York Times newspaper carried his obituary and reportedly quoted the tabla playerZakir Hussain as saying, "It is thought among musicians in India that his sarangi literally sang. He was able to coax out of the instrument all the nuances of the vocal style of Indian music."[1]
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