While Hindustani vocalist Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur’s Vachanas are amongst All India Radio’s rare CD collections ringing record sales for its archival material, now it is Mansur’s favourite student, late Siddharama Jambaladinni of Raichur district, whose recordings would be added to its heritage collection of CDs available for public.
Pandit Siddharama Jambaladinni’s nearly 50-year-old precious recordings of 14 Basaveshwara Vachanas, along with a rendering of his two classical ragas would be amongst AIR Bengaluru’s latest Archival CD series.
“It is officially approved and Akashvani soon plans to release Jambaladinni’s CD. We have meticulously sourced and collected them from several of our old recordings from 13 AIR stations of Karnataka,” Basavaraj C. Sadar, Director, Akashvani, Bengaluru said, before his recent retirement.
R.K. Srikantan, Gangubai Hangal, Bhimsen Joshi, Kalinga Rao, Mallikarjun Mansur and Basavaraj Rajguru are amongst Akashavani’s 2000 hours of “identified preserved music material” in Bengaluru.
Jambaladinni’s CD will contain his rare classical ragas as Chayanat and Bhairav too, apart from Vachanas of Basaveshwara, Allama Prabhu, Akkamahadevi and Akhandeshwara.
“He was one of the Vachana artistes selected by HMV-Sangeetha cassettes to be recorded nearly 30 years ago as he had put to music hundreds of Dasa and Vachana sahitya,” informs Jambaladinni’s only student Narasimhalu Vadavati, Professor of Sharana Basaveshwara College, Kalaburagi.
Born in 1918, Jabaladinni initially learnt for 20 years under Panchakshari Gavayi of Veereshwara Punyashrama in Gadag. His love for the Vachanas brought him closer to becoming Mansur’s student and started performing with him. “If it is Vachanas, one has to hear them only from Jambaladinni who handles them with his signature classical touches,” Mansur is often said to have publicly told.
“I can’t forget his rendering of raag Nand”, recalled Narasimhalu Vadavati.
“Jambaladinni brought in a combo of Gavayi’s Gwalior gharana and Mansur’s Jaipur gharana. That is why his combo-raag renderings as Saawani-Kalyan, Basanti-Kedar amongst several others were crowd-pullers,” Mr. Narasimhalu Vadavati added.
