www.asha-bhonsle.com - An Interview with Asha Bhosle after the passing away of Pancham

A very insightful and enlightening interview with Asha B about Pancham, taken shortly after his death (a month or so). The questions are very upfront and so are Asha's answers.

===========
A DAY AFTER
She's been widowed twice. And the tragedies have taken their toll. Asha Bhosle broke down, at the Filmfare wards function on February 12, just a month and eighty days after the sudden passing away of her husband. She announced the R.D.Burman award to be given to the best debutant music composer, from next year. Today, she looks much leaner and her trademark laughter and wit are missing. She's with her grand-daughter, listening quietly to the little one's non-stop patter. And you can't help asking...

What're you thinking of at this very moment?
...
======

Krishna honours jazz legend Ponty - NewIndPress.com

BANGALORE: On an evening when Carnatic, jazz and Scandinavian folk music fused seamlessly, Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna awarded the latest edition of the Lakshminarayana Award to jazz legend Jean-Luc Ponty here on Friday.

The award honours classical violin maestro Lakshminarayana, the father of fusion violin star L. Subramainam and the accompanying concert, the Lakshminarayana Global Music Festival, is all about ``Connecting People.''

Among the musicians who were honoured by the organisers included the Norwegian trio Stian Carstensen, Frode Haltli (both accordion players) and Ingebrigt Haaker Flaten (their double bassist), electric bass guitarist Guy Nsangue Akwa, originally from Camaroon, and over a dozen Carnatic and jazz artistes.

Kavita Krishnamurthy led the music parade of the Subramanium family with an R D Burman number. The show began with purely classical `Vaatapi' number by the youngest Subramanium, also named Lakshminarayana. His siblings Seetaa and Narayana also figured in the star cast.
...

The Earth songs

New Delhi, January 16: As a judge at Channel V's Popstars contest last year, Sandeep Chowta listened to R.D. Burman's Chura liya hai tumne being sung in every possible variation the contestants could think of. 'Having heard the number 10,000 times over, I remember joking to someone that the only thing left for me to do was to hear it backwards,' he says. Don't laugh. Chowta took his own gag seriously. So in the album "Mitti, Songs of the Soil" entirely conceived and produced by him, the mysteriously titled ayiL aruhC is in fact Chura liya backwards ... not just the title, but the lyrics and music too. Chowta shrugs as he says: "You hear plenty of such subliminal sounds from guys like Led Zeppelin you know." ...

Hindi film songs poor in melody: M M Kreem - The Times of India
An excerpt from the interview
...
"How are you able to make the south-north transition so fluently?"

"That's because I've been a listener of Hindi film songs from childhood. My role models are R D Burman, Madan Mohan, S D Burman... I believe what we absorb in our impressionable years must emerge positively in our creative years."
...

Shireesh Joshi's review of Chandan Ka Palna
from Pacham group
...
Where do I begin? How about the title track for starters. The track does not hold surprises for a fan today because it has many familiar RD ingredients. But way back then it must have been something else indeed.
...

We need a break!
by Rajiv Vijaykar
...
Of the two overdoses ["Punjabi Pop" and "Pancham Pop"], the RD one (at least in its original compilations form) is far less objectionable. But it is a supreme irony that a colossus like Pancham is being thrust in such excessive quantity on us when the man himself lived his entire career in search for more variety, experimentation and innovation. And what a tragedy that after his death, this truly-great composer has to be actually categorised with the likes of Bhupis, Sukhbir Manna, Kulbirs, Jassis, Sukhshinders and what-have-you-balle-balles as someone who is beginning to generate ennui. Excess is always bad. And it will be a great tragedy if the music consumer begins to revolt against two major assetes to popular music - Punjabi folk and R.D. Burman�s brilliance.

Shashi's review of Be-lagaam: from Pancham group
..
However please do not expect me to speak with enthusiasm on a movie
like BE-LAGAAM........

....but then what the heck...maybe I can:

Imagine an over-the-hill Rakesh Roshan with his ill-fitting wig
cavorting around as a college student. Imagine a tired, haggard,
hardly-in-touch-with-Bollywood Moon Moon Sen as the college
student's love interest.

Now throw in some chappie-wannabe-hero - whose-father-is-stinking-
rich, hence produces this movie. He forcibly (in script too) poses
as the 3rd angle to the triangle.

Besides Pancham's music, the next best interesting thing about the
movie I found was the movie title logo - interlaced with runnng wild
horses - BE-LAGAAM indeed.

But what about Pancham's music. Here's my take:
...

Shashi's review of Lava
from a Pancham Group post..
..
Alas - Lata scores over Asha again - 'Hum Tum Dono Milke' walked away with the popular accolades. Not that, that was any inferior to 'Jeene De' in terms of content. Pancham's pace of composition, KK's soothing and breezy crooning and Lata's bare minimum accompaniment - makes this one of the best romantic numbers for the 80s.
...

Remembering Pancham

Nine years ago this day, Rahul Dev Burman passed into the ages. His death came just weeks before he was about to return to the reckoning with his score for 1942: A Love Story.

Never has a composer been so missed as Pancham, and the timelessness of his compositions is reaffirmed by the RD remixes which hit the music stores every month.

Arthur J Pais salutes the man he calls India's most versatile composer.