Arrangers and Musicians

The Sculptors of Film Songs (6): S Hazara Singh

Guest Article by Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati original) & Ashok M Vaishnav (English Translation)

(Continuing their series on the Arrangers and Musicians our guest authors Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) now write on S Hazara Singh who played several instruments, but became a legend with Hawaiian guitar. His Hawaiian guitar pieces became the identity of many superhit songs of OP Nayyar and several other music directors. His independent LP albums of tunes of old film songs he played on the guitar sold like hot cakes.

Piyush ji and Ashok ji have demonstrated through this series how important was the role of the musicians and the arrangers in embellishing the songs. S Hazara Singh is one of the legends whose Hawaiian guitar pieces in many songs transformed a shell into a beautiful sculpture. Thank you Piyush ji and Ashok ji for another excellent article in the series, and making us aware of S Hazara Singh’s contributions. – AK)

In the initial phase of film music, the instruments like harmonium, shehnai, flute, sarangi were used mainly for the music support of a film song. However, with advent of new generation of experimentalist music directors like Pankaj Mullick, Anil Biswas, Khemchand Prakash etc. instruments like piano and different types of violins, accordions, guitars, pianos, saxophones etc. also found way into film music compositions. With arrangers and instrumentalists from Goa Christian Western music also joining the film music industry, film music underwent a fundamental shift.

In this period of transformation of Hindi film music, sometime around 1942, in the city of Karachi, of the then undivided India, a young man worked as a craftsman of peti (harmonium). He was also very good at crafting the reeds and ‘tuning’ the assembled harmonium pieces. Not before long, he also started working on different string instruments. As the providence would have it, he came to the notice of Ram Singh, the famous saxophone player of the early era during his frequent travels between Bombay and Karachi for recordings. He invited this young man to Bombay. After initial hesitation, somewhere around 1947, the young man did land up in Bombay. The luck was favourable to him as he immediately got his chance to play guitar in the Khemchand Prakash orchestra for the two iconic songs Aayega aanewala and Mushkil hai bahut mushkil (Mahal, 1949). READ THE FULL ARTICLE

The Sculptors of Film Songs (5): Manohari Singh

Guest article by Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) as a tribute to the legendary saxophone player Manohari Singh on his 13th Remembrance Day

(Our immortal songs are memorable not only because of the melody created by the music director, but also because of the preludes, interludes, the musicians who played them unrecognised, and the arrangers who decided in co-ordination with music director which instruments came when for how long. This combined effort created a beautiful ensemble.

Our guest authors, Piyush M Pandya (originally in Gujarati) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) have been writing an excellent series of articles on the Arrangers and Musicians who remained behind the curtain, but who deserve our recognition. They have already written on Sebastian D’Souza, Anthony Gonsalves, Enoch Daniels, Kishore Desai. In their fifth article in the series, Piyushji and Ashokji now put the spotlight on the legendary saxophone player Manohari Singh on his 13th Remembrance Day (8 March 1931 – 13 July 2010).

Manohari Singh has the rare distinction of appearing on the screen prominently in a famous song with his saxophone. The guest writers start this article with that iconic song. Thank you Piyushji and Ashokji for another excellent article on the Arrangers and Musicians. – AK).      READ THE FULL ARTICLE

The Sculptors of Film Songs (4): Kishore Desai

Guest article by Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation)

(Our guest authors Piyush M Pandya and Ashok M Vaishnav have been writing an excellent series on the Arrangers and Musicians for the last few months in which they have already covered three of the most celebrated names: Sebastian D’Souza, Anthony Gonsalves and Enoch Daniels. Continuing the series, now they put the spotlight on Kishore Desai who was proficient with at least two instruments: mandolin and sarod.

The guest authors describe how these arrangers and musicians were instrumental in embellishing the melodies. They remained in behind the curtains, generally unsung and anonymous. With the series we now realise how they were so integral to some of our most favourite songs. You would be surprised to now how Kishore Desai was associated with some immortal songs with his mandolin or sarod. Besides, he was also the composer of some of the most famous non-film songs, Thank you Piyushji and Ashokji for another enlightening article in the series. – AK)

Tum bin jaaun kahan ke duniya mein aakar kuchh na phir chaha sanam (Pyar Ka Mausam, 1969 – Music: R D Burman) is one song which perhaps remains an unbridgeable divide between Kishore Kumar and Mohammad Rafi fans. For more knowledgeable ones, initially it was also a hotly debated issue as to who has played the mandolin in the two versions. However, many subsequent interviews by the two instrumentalists who have played the mandolin, Manohari Singh and Kishore Desai, have it well-settled that Manohari Singh has played mandolin for Kishore Kumar version and Kishore Desai, on the very specific invitation by Manohari Singh himself as the arranger, has played the mandolin for Mohammad Rafi version.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

The Sculptors of Film Songs (3): Enoch Daniels

Guest article by Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) as a tribute to Enoch Daniels on his 90th birth anniversary (b. 16 April 1933) in the continuing series on Arrangers and Musicians

(After their articles on Sebastian D’ Souza and Anthony Gonsalves, the guest authors Piyush M Pandya and Ashok M Vaishnav now write this article as a tribute to another legend Enoch Daniels on his 90th birth anniversary. We are lucky that he is still around, in Pune.

Enoch Daniels is synonymous with piano-accordion. He is among the few Arrangers and Musicians who established their independent identity, through his records and concerts. I am grateful to Piyushji and Ashokji for another excellent article on the legendary Enoch Daniels. – AK) 

How to begin the article on Enoch Daniels is the dilemma of choosing between presenting the musician first or his instrument. Accordion has its presence registered in almost all genre of music, such as Rock n Roll, Jazz, Pop etc. The great accordionists like Goody Seervai, Sumit Mitra, Kersi Lord, Dheeraj Dhanak, K. Bharat, Enoch Daniels, Sammy Reuben and Suraj Sathe greatly contributed to the wide-spread use of (piano) accordion in songs, title music, background scores, or anywhere where music had a role in Hindi films in the 50s and 60s. Because of its universal appeal, it seems better to talk about the accordion first.READ THE FULL ARTICLE

The Sculptors of Film Music (2): Anthony Gonsalves

Guest article by Piyush M Pandya (originally in Gujarati) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) as a tribute to Anthony Gonsalves (12 June 1927 – 18 January 2012)

(Greg Booth starts his celebrated book on the musicians and arrangers, “Behind the Curtain: Making Music in Mumbai’s Film Studios”, with the introductory chapter titled, “Who Is Anthony Gonsalves”. We all, of course, know that he was one of the three brothers of Manmohan Desai’s “Amar Akbar Anthony” (1977), played on the screen by Amitabh Bachchan, who burst out of a huge Easter egg, singing the suerhit song “My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves”.

However, not many know that LP composed this song as a tribute to Pyarelal’s violin guru, Anthony Gosalves. Booth also points to the irony of the biggest star of Hindi films, The Amitabh Bachchan playing a character and lip-sync a song named after a musician and arranger who lived a life of anonymity.

Anthony Gonsalves was regarded as the first arranger of Hindi films, starting his career from the 1940s. Continuing their series of tribute to what they call “The Sculptors of Film Music”, the guest writers Piyush M Pandya and Ashok M Vaishnav now answer the question, “Who Was Anthony Gonsalves”. Their first article was devoted to Sebastian D’Souza. Thank you Piyushji and Ashokji for another highly informative article on one of the greatest musicians and arrangers. – AK)

Even a very keen follower of film music would it find it difficult to list the music arrangers and instrument players beyond a few, more by luck than design, handpicked popular names. When radio was the major source of listening to the film songs, one possible reason that music arrangers and instrument players hardly got any mention when the song was played was that for each song such a list would probably take more time than possibly the actual paying time of the song, typically recorded on one side of a 78-RPM shellac record. By the time FM radio listening generation came in, this genre of supporting music was confined to pre-programmed database of ‘digitally generated’ sounds of digital or electronic instruments. So, when the music director himself was becoming more of an assembler, it would be surprising if any other support sources would have got some mention.READ THE FULL ARTICLE

The Sculptors of Film Songs (1): Sebastian D’Souza

Guest article by Piyush M Pandya (originally in Gujarati) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) as a tribute to Sebastian D’Souza on his 117 birth anniversary (29 January 1906 – 9 March 1998)

(If you remove the prelude, interlude and orchestral arrangements from ‘Aawara hun, ya gardish mein hun aasman ka tara hun’, or ‘Mera joota hai Japani’ or scores of our everlasting songs, a bare body would be left without adornments, embellishments and beauty. The songs would be hardly recognisabale.

The ‘arrangement’ of musical instruments adds beauty to the bare body of the song created by the music director. Yet the arrangers remained behind the curtain. They were rarely credited in the credit titles in fine print, and they virtually remained unknown to the music loving people, except some who were deeply involved in it.

There have been repeated requests by the readers to write on some famous Arrangers. I had to politely skirt the issue; I realised that one needed much more information than what was there in Greg Booth’s celebrated book, “Behind the Curtain: Making Music in Mumbai’s Film Studios”.

In this situation Piyush Pandya’s series in Gujarati on Web Gurjari  came as a godsend. Mr Pandya retired after teaching Microbiology in a local college for 39 years, and is now settled in Ahmedabad. He was deeply interested in the songs of 1940s through 1970s, and was drawn towards fine points of orchestration. He often wondered who played which instrument at a particular spot in a song. The Internet era has helped him in scouring for information, and assisted by knowledgeable friends like Har Mandir Singh ‘Hamraaz’, Harish Raghuvanshi, Biren Kothari and Chandrashekhar Vaidya, Piyushji has been able to write a series on the famous Arrangers of the Golden Era.

Ashok M Vashnav offered to translate these articles in English for publication on SOY, one a month. Ashokji is well known to SOY regulars. He retired as an engineer and now is a freelance management trainer based out of Ahmedabad.

Piyushji and Ashokji have decided to launch the series in the New Year with one of the greatest Arrangers, Sebastian D’Souza on his 117th birth anniversary (29 January 1906 – 9 March 1998). Being the first article in the series, it has a long introduction how our film music evolved from our ancient roots in other performance traditions; this would not be repeated in the remaining articles. With this I also welcome Piyushji on his debut in the new Year on SOY. Thanks a lot Piyushji and Ashokji for this wonderful New Year gift. – AK)

Introduction: Evolution of Film Music

A school of knowledgeable people believes that the music came into being when an infinitely dense singularity exploded with a Big Bang to bring our universe into existence. That explosion is our primal sound. The spread of that sound on a wave of radiation brought rhythm into existence. Thus, the two basic elements of music – the note (melody) and the beat (rhythm) – also can be believed to have come into existence simultaneously with the universe. The blowing of winds, explosions of volcanoes, the thunders of clouds and the strong winds of tornadoes that kept happening throughout the chain of events on the earth brought in them vast range of sounds. The waves of oceans, flowing waters of streams, winds blowing through the woods, the chime of rain drops falling on the leaves blended variety to the diversity of sound.READ THE FULL ARTICLE