ILYAS KHAN | Raga Tilak Kamod

An album with Ilyas Khan Sahebs music can be found here: matyasitar.ban...
Alap
Ustad Ilyas Khan - Sitar
Further details not available
Sitarya Ustad Ilyas Khan (1924-1989) -second son of the legendary sarod maestro Ustad Sakhawat Hussain Khan (1875-1955) of Lucknow-Shahjahanpur Gharana was a phenomenal musician with a huge repertoire of Ragas and compositions. Most of his life he was teaching music at the Bhatkhande College in Lucknow and lived a life devoted to music.
"Ilyas Khan was roughly a contemporary of Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan and Abdul Halim Jaffer Khan. Yet few listeners today have heard of him, let alone his recorded music. He added to his gharana’s knowledge bank by studying, in addition to his family’s repertoire, more gats and dhrupads from the sitar gharana of Kalpi, near Lucknow. His non-family teachers had been the ustads Abdul Ghani Khan, a dhrupad singer, and Yusuf Ali Khan, a sitarist and sitar maker (also the original designer of the kharaj-pancham sitar that is today synonymous with Ravi Shankar)." (quoted from Arnab Chakrabarty´s article in scroll.in)
Recording and pictures taken from the archive of Ustad Irfan MD Khan. The first photograph shows Irfan Khan on tanpura, the second his elder brother Shahid Khan on tanpura. Photo #1 taken by Tadahiro Wakabayashi
More clips of the Ustad from our archive:
• ILYAS KHAN

[@AboutEndlessness02112021]

Sublime, heavenly , beautiful. Thanks a lot for the upload. This is what one lives for.

[@irfanmuhammadkhan4737]

Sublime music

[@lucknow-shahjahanpur-ghara7790]

Absolutely! So glad you had kept this tape and all the others.

[@Raghu618]

Music world will be deeply indebted you for archiving and publishing these hidden gems...

[@lester9330]

The recording is remarkable and to my ears sounds close miked, particularily the presense of the left hand action, so the microphone was really well placed! I've never heard this raag played with such feeling, depth and understanding. All roads do lead to Lucknow as I've learned over the years.

[@lucknow-shahjahanpur-ghara7790]

This is most likely the longest Alap recording of UIK that we have in our archive. A true gem. The initial cassette transfer i made some years ago was very bad and barely audible. I thoroughly cleaned the tape last winter for a new and better transfer. Luckily it worked.

[@irfanmuhammadkhan4737]

@@lucknow-shahjahanpur-ghara7790 Thank you so much Matyas.

[@lucknow-shahjahanpur-ghara7790]

​@irfanmuhammadkhan4737 my pleasure, Ustadji!

[@sarbani26]

So sublime and pure!

[@lester9330]

Looking forward to listening to this, this evening.(it's morning now!) Always a revelation, these rare recordings. Sublime indeed.

[@lucknow-shahjahanpur-ghara7790]

Enjoy!

[@lester9330]

In the last movement he leads into a very familiar composition in madhya laya, incorporating elements in the jorh jhallah. Awsome and amazing!There are beautiful women and then there is this music.