Remembering RD Burman...

Here is a link to a blog on Pancham i.e. RD Burman by my friend Rama (Ramakrishnan Sadasivan). Rama is a fellow enthusiast of the beautiful, futuristic music that flowed from the golden heart of Pancham.

The simplicity and terseness of the musical phrases that Pancham used in his compositions, are so full of character - completely soul satisfying to say the least. He never was grand in orchestrating nor borrowed heavily from Indian classical ragas like Ilaiyaraja did. But Pancham did have a vision that is also shared by Ilaiyaraja, in that (a) a composition will have a strikingly-rich-character-laden melody line throughout the song - be it a guitar riff (Phir Wahi Raat Hai from the Gulzar directed movie Ghar) or the use of tablas tuned to the notes of a raga (Tere Bina Jiya Jayena again from the movie Ghar) and (b) the composition will sound futuristic. In fact, even after 30 years or more, the compositions dazzle us and sound so very modern!

Have fun reading, watching and especially listening to the anecdotes that lyricist Gulshan Bawra narrates about Pancham's antics while composing a song. Without further ado, here is the link to the blog...

Remembering RD Burman

After you are done with above, take a listen to an unplugged version of the classic ghazal Huzoor Is Kadar composed by Pancham from the movie Masoom. This unplugged version is an attempt by my band BOOMM.

Huzoor Is Kadar (Unplugged) - Piano: Zameer; Guitar: Prakash; Vocals: Sunil and Arun