Imrat Khan, Shafaatullah Khan

2024 Stock. Ustad Imrat Khan hails from a great tradition of musicians called the Imdadkhani Gharana, named after his grandfather. It has produced great masters of the sitar such as Ustad Vilayat Khan and his son Shujaat Khan, Shahid Parvez and Budhaditya Mukherjee. This renowned gharana specializes in gayaki; the vocal style of sitar playing, which is obvious when listening to this recording, as I can't help singing along with the Ustad's beautiful lyrical playing. Imrat Khan is the master of the Surbahar, a kind of bass-sitar developed by his family - very suitable for the first of the two morning ragas featured on this disc: Miya ki Todi. This profound and lyrical raga - composed by the legendary court musician of Emperor Akbar: Miyan Tansen -is perhaps together with Raga Darbari Kannada the most accomplished of his recordings for Nimbus. The deep and resonating vibrations of the surbahar open the mind to higher and more subtle wavelengths - I know... this is the cliché about Indian classical music, but in this case you must take my word. Ustad Imrat Khan's playing is very expressive and of such noble refinement and delicacy that it is beyond labels of 'world-music' or 'Indian music', I rate him with L. Subramaniam, N. Rajam, Ali Akbar Khan, perhaps even with J.S. Bach and John Coltrane. And... as an encore: his version of Bilaskani Todi (composed by Tansen's son), played on the sitar, accompanied by this own son Shafatullah Khan. Giving us a chance to listen to his wonderful singing tone on the sitar, as the pace picks up the music starts to dance into the day... Highly recommended and as allways recording quality is exemplary with Nimbus."- Orpheus