REMEMBERING SHANKER ON HIS DEATH ANNIVERSARY
26th April 2014
On this day exactly 27yrs back Shanker , one of the
surviving duo of the most creative composers of the Hindi film music died a
desolate death , what with receiving a token media coverage and funeral
attended only by few of his family and friends and conspicuously shunned by his
most favored friend RajKapoor , even the film industry was hardly represented , thus
reinforcing the typecast of its fickle-natured loyalties in the film industry.
Along with Jaikishan the other artists, S.J as they were dotingly known
composed "everlasting" and "immortal melodies" for 3
decades. Their best work was noted for being raga-based songs having both
modulation and resonance. Shankar was a creative
musician with mastery over dozens of
Instruments and was prolific in Indian
classical music and dance forms. He was primarily responsible for building
Shankar Jaikishan as team with dedicated lyricists namely Shailendra and Hasrat
Jaipuri (together they were known as Musical Quartet) along with several music
assistants. All their songs were composed with numerous interludes of different
instruments with a gigantic sized 60 piece orchestra never seen & heard
before in Indian Music. He was the lead composer of the two.
He was known to create
tunes for a song instantly and is regarded as the fastest composer until today.
One such song I remember and adding the link today is the tribute to this master composer , the
song is from 1966 film “Amrapali”, lyrics by Shailendra , this song was composed by
Shanker in the shortest time , “Jao re jogi tum jaao re, yeh hai premiyon ki nagari”.
All the
connoisseurs of fine music would have been deaf if this composer duo would not have
existed at all , can’t imagine life without the music of S.J.
I don’t think Hindi Film
Music will ever come back to this class of music.
Justifiably with the passing away
of Shanker in the year 1987 the Hindi film music also lost it’s Golden Era.
Enjoy this
song for the day.
http://youtu.be/9e6rmVfDifo
Tributes written by
Shekhar Bopardikar
