TALAT AZIZ
Taking on the challenge

Talat Aziz as a ghazal ace needs no introduction. But the new millennium means new goals, and even as he is preparing to release a ‘different’ album with lyricist Anand Bakshi in June, he has already broken fresh ground as the composer of the Cinevista TV epic Noor Jahan.

As a music director, Talat Aziz has already had his trysts with TV serials in the shape of the highly popular title songs he composed for serials like Ghutan, Sailaab and more recently, Aashirwad. But scoring the music for Noor Jahan was something totally different, a major challenge. “I happen to know that some big names were being considered. Obviously a lot of thinking had to go into the choice of the composer, because the variety of songs needed included ghazal, qawwali, bhajan, folk from the Middle East to Kashmir and Rajasthan, a Holi number and even classical songs,” says Talat Aziz, “It was Sunil Mehta who had the confidence and insisted on me.”
There was one more challenge too. It had already been decided that the music score of the epic would be released in the market as a series of albums, the first of which is now out on the Venus label. “We needed authenticity in the music, and the songs had to be saleable too,” says Aziz.

The tricky tightrope act has been wonderfully accomplished by the versatile singer-composer-actor, who believes that the people will always accept good music and lyrics, irrespective of the so-called categorisation into film, ghazal, pop, devotional and so on. “The Cinevista people had approached a couple of music companies who said that they liked the music but did not know where to categorise it. Aaj kal to mousiqi mein bhi categories aane lagi hai!” he smiles ruefully. But Champak Jain of Venus heard just one song and bought the rights. I hope that the music is successful, as it can set a healthy trend for other TV serials,” says Aziz.

Aziz is also grateful to the people behind the serial for not hurrying him up with the score. “I began work on it in late 1997,” he reveals, “I had to give it a lot of thought and do a good amount of research and planning. At no stage was I told to compromise. Nida (Fazli) saab was the obvious choice for the lyrics and he wrote some really fantastic verse.”

It was the complete creative carte blanche that inspired Aziz. “For example, the title song was conceived as a qawwali,” says Aziz, “Now I have been exposed to qawwalis from my childhood in Hyderabad, so I wanted the feel of the genuine, spiritual qawwali. I auditioned several very good singers who just could not fulfill my vision. The late composer Mohammed Shafi Niyazi finally told me of an anonymous pair - Sarfaraz Chisty and Nizam - who stayed in Sambhal, a remote village near Moradabad. It took a while to contact them and call them over and I found that they were just what I wanted for the composition. They had amazing voices, the diminutive Nizam - who could not even read or write - had a range that started at Kaali 2 and went on the same note two octaves higher, the voice gathering punch all the way instead of thinning down! Since the duo were natural talents without any technical expertise at the mike, I worked in the reverse fashion, getting their voices taped with just the basic accompaniment, and then working in the music tracks. My arranger Y.S.Moolky da has done a fabulous job.”

The album has eight tracks, out of which Talat has sung just one high-pitched number, Jaise mere yaar ka chehera. Says Aziz, “I am a ruthless composer. I sing only those songs which do not suit someone else better. In this one, I decided to experiment by keeping the scale high and bring in an element of baul as the song was go on a blind mystic singing away in a jungle.”

The singers include Sonu Nigam, Jaspinder Narula and Sadhana Sargam, all of whom sound different under Talat’s baton. Tell him that Sadhana sounds remarkably like Asha Bhosle in her tracks (Unko bhi humse and Mohan Radha ka sansaar) and he says that he gave no such instructon. “A probable reason is that she was singing at a slightly lower pitch,” he suggests, “Each of my singers fulfilled the needs of the song, its situation and my vision. All credit goes to Sonu, who has done a superb job singing in the gruff voice so typical of middle-Eastern folk in Gul bhi woh.”

Aziz adds that there was a mutual decision to maintain a good degree of authenticity in the music in every way. “Except sparingly in a couple of tracks in which it is used more of a cue, the tabla - which was not even devised then - has not been used at all. We have used the pakhawaj, the precursor of the tabla, the swarmandal, and authentic instruments of that region like the dirbeki (the drum belly dancers hold between their thighs), the oudh (which is a kind of Arabic guitar), the kanoon, which is the precursor of the santoor and even the typical rabab of Afghanistan.”

About 17 songs have so far been recorded for the serial and the next album should hopefully be out soon. The track that is making news is a mind-blowing classical song filmed on the character of Tansen, for the legendary sequence in which the court singer’s singing caused the lamps to be lit. “For such a song, I wanted only Rashid Khan from Calcutta. He, Ustad Sultan Khan and I worked on the bandishein to be used, as precious little information is available on Raag Deepak. I hit upon the idea of beginning the song in Raag Darbari - which is the accepted raag sung in royal darbars, and moving on to Raag Bhoopali, which has the kind of latent fire Raag Deepak had. I really had to work on the music used during the transition from Darbari to Bhoopali,” says Aziz.

With so much effort going into this memorable music, the serial might well be renamed Sur Jahan.

Rajiv Vijayakar