Rahul dev burman

It is a curious thing that R D Burman also goes by the name of Pancham. Story goes that when veteran Ashok Kumar saw Sachin Dev Burman's newborn uttering the syllable 'Pa' repeatedly, he nicknamed him Pancham. And the name stuck. To many, he's still Pancham Da. The man who added his unique dash of pep and verve in to Hindi film music starting with the 60s. The first music director who added a pinch of Rock 'n' Roll to lilting Hindi tunes. And created a brand of music so distinctly his own, that even his father, the older Burman came to be proud of his son's unconventional music.Rahul Dev Burman was born on 27 June 1939. To him, music came easy and early. He learnt to play the Sarod from the legendary Ustad Ali Akbar Khan at very young age. He also played the mouth organ. When he was nine years old, he composed his first song, 'Aye Meri Topi Palat Ke Aa..', which was later used for the film Funtoosh and the very next year, his father borrowed the tune of 'Sar Jo Tera Chakraye..' for the Guru Dutt film Pyaasa. The first film the younger Burman scored music for was Mehmoood's Chote Nawab in 1961 and the first song in the film was to be recorded was by Lata Mangeshkar. The film marked the reconciliation between S. D. Burman and Lata Mangeshkar who had stopped recording together six years ago.Vijay Anand can be credited with bringing about R D Burman's first big break. He arranged a music session for the youngster before Nasir Hussain commenced the production of Tesri Manzil. Shammi Kapoor, who heard RD's tunes, is said to have screamed 'Yahoo' in sheer appreciation while Nasir Hussain signed the young composer for six of his forthcoming films. At that time, he would not have known that the breathy 'Aaja Aaja..' would become one of the best seduction songs ever! R D Burman's constant efforts to break musical typecast and explore new possibilities came through in the music that he made. Be it the poignant tunes of Kati Patang, the love songs of Pyar Ka Mausam, the fun numbers from Padosan or the soulful melodies of Amar Prem, Pancham had done them all. While making music was his profession, singing always remained R D's passion. He sang occasionally and when he did, it was never went unnoticed.

Sachin dev burman

Known as "Sachin Karta" to the music connoisseurs of Kolkata, "Burman Dada" as fondly called by the musicians of Bombay, "Shochin Deb Bormon" by the radio listeners of Bangladesh and West Bengal, India, "S.D. Burman" by the film cine goers or simply "SD" by his "jeans" filmi fans -- he created songs that bore the stamp of his inimitable genius, abounding in variety yet retaining the distinction of his style. Drawing from the vast store of folk music-forms and from the classical teachings, as the mood called for, he produced what is known as the Sachin Dev Burman music which is at once rotund, vibrant and unorthodox both in form and substance. Sachin Dev Burman was born October 10, 1901 as one of the nine children of Prince Komilla of Tripura. Sachin Dev underwent classical training from his father, Sitar player and Dhrupad singer Nabadweep Chandra Dev Burman. He later trained under Ustad Badal Khan and Bhishmadev Chattopadhyay and this classical training gave him a firm rooting for the music that he was to compose later in life.After his father's death Sachin left home, travelled for years in the forests of Assam and Tripura from where he gained his formidable knowledge and rich repertoire of the rich folk of that region and Bengal. Later he became a disciple of Ustad Aftabuddin Khan, becoming an ace flautist, and starting his own music school, ‘Sur Mandir’ in Calcutta in the 1930’s. He rose to be a popular singer there, learnt more under the illustrious K. C. Dey. He also scored music for Rajkumar Nirshoney, a Bengali film, in 1940. He married Meera, an accomplished singer in 1938. Rahul Dev Burman was born a year later.

Sandhya mukherjee

Sandhya Mukhopadhyay (1931) is a famous Indian singer and musician, specialising in Bengali music. She was born in Kolkata, India. She is also known as Sandhya Mukherjee.Sandhya started her music training under the direction of Pandit Santosh Kumar Basu, Professor A Kannan and Professor Chinmay Lahiri. However, her guru was Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan under whom she mastered Indian classical music.Though classically trained, the bulk of her work consists of Bengali modern songs. She began her career in Mumbai singing Hindi songs, starting with a song in the film Anjan Garh at the age of 17. Following her marriage to the Bengali poet Shyamal Gupta she settled in her home city of Kolkata. Gupta went on to write the lyrics for many of her famous songs.Her most famous collaboration is arguably with the Bengali singer Hemanta Mukherjee with whom she sang numerous duets, primarily as playback for Bengali films produced from Kolkata. Hemanta and Sandhya became known as the voices behind the pairings of the Bengali superstar Uttam Kumar and his numerous heroines. She also sang several of Salil Chowdhury's hit Bengali songs, such as Ujjwal Ek Jhank Payra, regarded as a classic.During the Bangladesh Liberation War she joined the mass movement among Indian Bengali artistes to raise money for the millions of refugees who had poured into Kolkata and West Bengal to escape the fighting, and to raise global awareness for the cause of Bangladesh. She assisted Bangladeshi musician Samar Das as he set up the Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendro, the clandestine radio station broadcasting to Bangladesh and recorded several patriotic songs for him. On the occasion of the release of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the imprisoned leader of the new country of Bangladesh, she released a famous song Bangabandhu Tumi Phirey Ele. She later became one of the first foreign artistes to visit Dhaka, performing at an open-air concert in Paltan Maidan in Dhaka to celebrate the first Ekushey February after Bangladeshi independence in 1972. She also recorded several songs for Samar Das's film Dhirey Bohey Meghna and Salil Chowdhury's Raktakta Bangla.

Salil choudhary

Salil Choudhary was one of the greatest musical talents India ever had. A man of many talents. He was not only an outstanding composer, an accomplished and gifted arranger, poet and writer but above all an intellectual. A master multi-instrumentalist, he played excellent flute, Esraj, violin and piano , with a deep and well-studied understanding of several other instruments as is evident from their creative use in his music.Salil was born on November 19, 1925. He spent many years of his childhood in the Assam tea gardens where his father was a doctor. He grew up listening to his father's large collection of western classical music and the folk songs of Assam and Bengal. This influenced him considerably and shaped his musical thinking. Young Salil could sing very well and played excellent flute from tjhe age of eight. In fact his expertise in flute brought him in contact with the outside musical world. He was very fond of his father. Salil remembered how his father once hit one of the British managers and broke his three front teeth after he called his father 'dirty nigger'. Salil's father organised and staged plays with the tea-garden coolies and other lowly paid workers . Salil remembers his father's strong anti-British feelings and his concern and love for the oppressed tea garden workers. After graduating from Bangabaashi College in Calcutta, during his university years his political ideas were fast maturing along with his musical ideas. Living through the second world war, the Bengal famine and the hopeless political situation of the '40s, he became acutely aware of his social responsibilities. This is when he joined IPTA (Indian Peoples Theater Association) and became a member of the communust party. During this period he wrote numerous songs and with IPTA took his songs to the masses. They travelled through the villages and the cities and his songs became the voice of the masses.These songs were very powerful indeed. Songs of protest which made people aware of the rampant social injustice which surrounded them. These songs became very powerful and stimulating. In fact, Salil always retained his strong feelings for the social injustice and very often wrote songs which reflected this feelings. He called these songs the 'Songs of consciousness and awakening'.

Kishor kumar ganguly

Kishore Da was born on August 4, 1929, in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh as Aabhas Kumar Ganguly. Kishore Kumar's father Kunjalal Ganguly, a lawyer by profession, was a modest man. Kishore's mother Gauri Devi, hailed from a wealthy family. Of the four children, Ashok Kumar was the eldest, born on 13 October 1911 and was twenty years older than Kishore . He was followed by a daughter, Sati Devi,who was about 15 years older to Kishore. The next was a boy, Anoop Kumar was about 5 years older than Kishore, who was the youngest of all. Since his childhood Kishore nurtured dreams of becoming a singer and following the footsteps of his idol K. L. Saigal. He visited his by then famous star brother Ashik Kumar, in Mumbai frequently, in the hope that he would introduce him to K. L. Saigal. But destiny willed otherwise. He was forced into acting and hated every moment of it.In an industry, where comedy was seen as a filler or diversion from the main plot, there emerged in the form of Kishore, a hero who made comic acting an evolved art. Laughing, singing and dancing, Kishore was the complete comic hero, comparable to the likes of Bob Hope and Dany Kaye. And his unconventional looks and personality added to the fun that audiences had when watching him. Even while playing second fiddle to the hero, Kishore added an extra zing to the film.The young Kishore's real ambition was to become a playback singer and which became true, when, music director Khemchand Prakash called him to lend his voice for Dev Anand for the film Ziddi in 1948, the song was 'Marne Ki Duvayen Kyon Maangoon..'. It was then that he met Lata Mangeshkar, an encounter as amusing and as strange as everything else is about Kishore Kumar. In his own words, in a rare interview with Lata he saya, "We happened to be travelling in the same local train. You got off and i got off. You got into a tonga, so did i. Both of us reached Bombay Talkies Studios. And you were convinced that i was following you."

Pankaj mullick

Pankaj Mullick was born on 20th April 1904 at Calcutta, India. Pankaj Mullick was son of Manimohan Mullick who had a great interest in traditional music, and would invite eminent singers and instrumentalists to perform during religious festivals. Born in a middle class Bengali family, it was here that Pankaj Mullick drew inspiration from classical Hindustani music. From a very early age, he decided that his vocation would be music, and though enrolled in college, he did not pursue higher education. After completing his college studies he became a student of Durgadas Banerjee. Later, he joined Dinendra Nath Tagore for learning music. His first record was released by the Videophone Company in the year 1926. Pankaj Mullick was lucky to be introduced to the Tagore family, which was to have an everlasting influence upon him. Rabindra Sangeet became his forte, and he is the only man who has tuned a Rabindranath poem to music, 'Diner Seshey, Ghoomer Deshey' with the great poet's total approval. The approval of the great poet came to Pankaj after endless numbers of hours of waiting on him, and the story has it that it was for a college function that Pankaj had approached the great poet to have his permission to perform one of his poetries, to which Rabindranath Tagore asked him to sing out the composition that he had in mind. It was after hearing his composition that Rabindranath was so very overcome with the tune that he granted him a total approval for all his poetries. Thus was through Pankaj Mullick's songs that Rabindra Sangeet became popular in every Bengali household, even raising great interest among Western music connoisseurs.

Manna dey

Manna Dey was a flawless singer who could sing any type of song. From Qawwalis (Yeh Ishq Ishq hai) to romantic duets (Pyar hua iqraar hua), fast nubers (Aaoo twist karen, Jhoomta mausam mast mahina) to patriotic songs (Aye mere pyare watan) or prayer numbers (Tu pyar ka saagar hai) -- he was the versatile genius. His mastery over semi-classical geets was something, which even the multi-faceted voice of Rafi could not match.Being the versatile genius he was, he won the Filmfare award for his toe-tapping number "Aae bhai zara dekh ke chalo" from "Mera Naam Joker". The song happens to be one of the most intricate compositions of Shankar-Jaikishen and it was the genius of Manna Dey that made it sound so simple and fluent.

Hemanta Mukherjee

Hemanta Mukherjee was born on the 16th of June 1920 in Varanasi. From an early age he had developed an everlasting bond with music. In his autobiography "Ananda-dhara" he mentions " I would always be on the lookout for a chance to sing . Be it a religious festival or just a family gathering I would enjoy singing any new song that I had picked up". His talent was soon recognized and Hemanta Mukherjee sang his first song on the AIR in 1933 at the age of 13. Six years later he cut his first gramophone disc for HMV. Recognition soon followed in the elite music circle of India. In 1940 he sang his first Hindi geet 'Kitna dukh bhulaya tumne'. But commercial success was yet to come. In his own words "I would wait at soirees for organizers to call on me, but singers of the stature of Pankaj Mullick and K.L. Saigal would arrive and I would have to remain content listening to them." But a true genius never goes unrecognized. In 1948, a firebrand lyricist and music composer - Salil Chowdhury teamed up with him and gave birth to a completely new form of music - Kavya-geeti (ballad but not necessarily romantic) . It was immediately a smash hit. To this day the song - 'Ga.Nyer Bodhu'remains the symbol of the once properous rural Bengal. Soon Hemanta received offers from the Bombay film Industry. And after that there was no looking back.

Haimanti Shukla

Her name is her introduction, a musical rhythm , a phenomenon in music in the hearts of the thousands of music lovers. She is Haimanti Sukla. Born on 02.02.1949 , singing came to her naturally at a very tender age owing to her celebrity father, the very well known Late Pt. Harihar Shukla. The tradition of Indian Classical Music in her family , helped her in developing the foundation for music in her golden voice. The charm in her voice was soon recognized in the year 1972 with her first recording " E to kanna noy aamar " lyrics and music given by the famous Shailen Mukhopadhyay and Pulak Bandhopadhyay. But much before that she had carved out a special image for herself in the sections of Khayal, Thumris and Bhajans being a regular performer on the AIR. Though there was depth and charm in her voice she too had to go through hard times in the process of making a firm ground for herself in the industry. Then came a chance in her life that changed everything for her.A chance rendered to her by her Patron Pulak Bandhyapadhyay and the famous singer Manna Dey. The song was supposed to be sung by Manna Dey himself but he made way for this budding singer and the song " Aamar bolaar kichu chilo na " became an instant hit and is still a very popular number. Haimanti Shukla did utmost justice to the song and made it an ever green score. It was her magical voice and her undiminished sincerity in music that she became a favorite of the likes of musical maestros Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Pt Ravi Shankar, Pt Bhimsen Joshi, Ustad Alla Rakha Khan and Naushad. Apart from these exponents of classical music , great composers like Hemanta Mukherjee, Salil Chaudhuri and Manna Dey scored memorable music for her. She has got a number of film and non-films songs to her credit. It is quite natural that such an artist will be honoured with a number of awards and accolades. To name a few are the Sur Sringer Academy award for her song " Kahan se aaye badra " in the hindi film "Chasme Baddor" in 1981. She is also a proud recipient of Mian Tansen Award awarded to her in the year 1975. Haimanti Shukla has a history of three decades of a successful musical profession. Yet she is considered to be one of the modern singers of today. From Classical Music to Modern songs - she performs it with a seemingly effortless manner that has made her so popular among all classes of music lovers.

Chandrabindoo(bangla band)

Chandrabindoo (often spelled Chandrabindu), based in Kolkata, is a bangla band. Their name refers both to the last character in the Bengali alphabet and to a dialogue (very famous among Bengalis) from the nonsense work HaJaBaRaLa by Sukumar Ray.
The band is known for Chandril's satirical, colloquial lyrics, full of references to current affairs and cultural phenomena. They also sing other types of song, written by Anindyo.
They are well known in Kolkata, Dehli and Mumbai and have recently started touring internationally including a performance in aid of the Kolkata based Child In Need Institute (CINI)in LondonBand membersShurojit — guitar Rajshekhar — percussion Chandril — lyricist Anindyo — lyricist/music composer/lead vocals Aroop — bass guitar Upal — music composer/lead vocals Sibu — Keyboard FORMER MEMBERSPritam Arindam Dron Riju ALBUMSAr Jani Na (1997) Gadha (1998) Twaker Jatna Nin (1999) Chaw (2001) Daknam (2002) Juju (2003) Chandrabindaas (compilation, 2005) Ebhabeo Phire Asha Jai (re-working of Ar Jani Na, 2005) Hulabila (2005) U/A (2008)

Anjan dutta

Anjan Dutta is a popular artist of the 1990s Bengali music scene defined by anyodharar gaan (alternative songs). He passed his childhood in St Paul's School, Darjeeling, a Himalayan township of West Bengal. He holds an MA degree in English literature from the University of Calcutta, in India. Anjan started his career as an actor in Bengali cinema. His first film was Chalachitro directed by Mrinal Sen, where he won the prize for the best newcomer actor, at the Venice Film Festival. But later on, his career diverted towards the world of music. Anjan Dutta's style of music is different from the others in the sense that it has simple tunes, one that is reminiscent of western hits. His lyrics are simple in nature. Anjan's music is somewhat influenced by blues and country music. He is the first Bengali artist to depend more on the saxophone. Anjan Dutta is also a co-director of several Bengali and Hindi language movies. He has admitted that he is a fan of Bob Dylan and his Bengali contemporary Suman Chatterjee. Recently, he has acted in Aparna Sen's film, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer. In a nutshell, Anjan Dutta may be regarded as one of the best serious actors in the Indian parallel cinema movement, that has seen the likes of Mrinal Sen's much-esteemed film "Bhuvan Som". Anjan Dutta has been regarded by some as being the 'angry young man' of serious cinema in contemporary India.
Anjan Dutta's music has been covered by a number of Bengali artists throughout the last decade. More recently, his music has been performed at the 2003 North American Bengali Conference in Long Beach, CA in person. His music has been performed at South Asian culture shows in North America as well.