Ustad Alladiya Khan

Alladiya Khan was born on 10 August 1855 at Uniara, a small place in Tonk in what was then Jaipur State, into a family of musicians. His father Ahmed Khan died early in his life, and his uncle Jehangir Khan of Jaipur taught him dhrupad for five years and then khayal for eight more. He is said to have kept up six hours of palta practice daily well into his fifties.

He served in the courts of several rulers in Rajasthan and travelled to Bihar, Patna, Allahabad, Nepal and Baroda to sing for princely patrons. In his late thirties he lost his voice for nearly two years after overextending it at a patron's request, and although it returned, it is said never to have recovered its earlier ease. The manner of singing he devised within those limits became the Jaipur gayaki.

From 1895 he settled in Kolhapur as court musician to Shahu Maharaj. When the ruler died he moved to Bombay in 1922, where he taught a large number of disciples and sang in the city's mehfils until his death on 16 March 1946. His account of his life, narrated to his grandson Azizuddin Khan, was published in English translation as My Life (Thema, Kolkata, 2000).

In his late thirties Khan lost his voice for nearly two years, the result of overextending it at a patron's request; the voice that returned never recovered its earlier sensitivity, and the Jaipur gayaki as it is now known was conceived within those limits. He was born Ghulam Ahmad Khan, and claimed descent from Nath Vishwambhar, an ancestor of Swami Haridas, his family having converted to Islam in the Mughal era.

Much of his repertoire came out of the haveli sangeet of northern Rajasthan, where he grew up: he brought its rare ragas onto the concert platform and built bandishes from its dhrupads, among them the Nayaki Kanada "Mero Piya Rasiya" and the Bihagda "Ae Pyaari pag hole". He revived or composed Nat Kamod, Bhoop Nat, Kaunsi Kanada, Sampoorna Malkauns, Basanti Kedar, Shuddha Nat, Malavi, Savani Kalyan and DhavalaShree. He never allowed his voice to be recorded.

His eldest son Nasiruddin "Badeji" Khan (1886-1966) could not sing professionally because of ill health, so the gayaki passed through Manji Khan and Bhurji Khan. Manji Khan began teaching Mallikarjun Mansur in 1935 but died in 1937; it was Bhurji Khan who carried the style forward to Mansur, Wamanrao Sadolikar and Dhondutai Kulkarni. His account of his own life, narrated to his grandson Azizuddin Khan, was published in English as My Life (Thema, Kolkata, 2000), introduced by Amlan Dasgupta and Urmila Bhirdikar.

His singing is remembered for long, intricately structured phrases and for a repertoire of uncommon and compound ragas — among them Nat Kamod, Bhoop Nat, Kaunsi Kanada, Sampoorna Malkauns, Basanti Kedar, Shuddha Nat, Malavi, Savani Kalyan and DhavalaShree. He drew bandishes out of the Haveli Sangeet tradition of his Rajasthan childhood and brought them onto the concert platform, including the Nayaki Kanada composition "Mero Piya Rasiya". He never allowed his voice to be recorded, so the gayaki survives only through his students.