The Shehnai's Humble Master

by Richie UnterbergerRoughly speaking, Bismillah Khan is to the shehnai what Ravi Shankar is to the sitar: an acknowledged master of an instrument as it's heard in Indian music. As with Shankar, he's been recorded so extensively that no two-CD set could fully represent the territory his music covered during his lengthy life. As a double-CD introduction, however, The Shehnai's Humble Master is intelligently assembled and packaged. Its ten tracks span recordings made from 1959 to 1989, all but two of them being lengthy ragas ranging from ten to 27 minutes (the other two selections are three-minute pieces taken from the 1959 film Goonj Uthi Shehnai). The two discs add up to around two-and-a-half hours of music; the liner notes include a basic career overview and detailed track-by-track annotation; and whenever possible, according to the back cover, Saregama has "returned to the original master tapes and all performances are full-length and unedited." For all the veneration in which Khan is held and as conscientiously as this has been presented for the Western market, it should be said that this could still prove challenging listening for those not accustomed to or already known to have a liking for traditional Indian music. Disc one in particular concentrates on pious ragas, spotlighting the haunting buzzing tone of Khan's shehnai, that some might find wearing when taken for more than an hour at a time. Disc two, despite being presented as the second part of this compilation, might actually be a better starting point, as the combination of the shehnai with other instrumentation makes for more varied and accessible listening. Of particular note on that portion of the program are the contributions of sitarist Vilayat Khan (on a 46-minute selection of two ragas recorded live in 1989) and violinist V.G. Jog (on the 22-minute 1965 recording "Raga Jaijaiwanti").