Last of the great instrumentalists of his generation, Ustad Abdul Halim Jaffer Khan had an enviable musical pedigree which he sometimes deprecated (he once said he follows the gharana of love when asked about his gharana).
In a long interview last year with Pandit Nayan Ghosh for the Sangeet Natak Akademi archives, the Ustad had spoken at length on a variety of subjects. He recalled he had started learning from the age of five. After his father’s death when he was only 15, he needed to start supporting himself as his elder brother was not so supportive.
His first salary was Rs. 65 while working in the film industry. Halim Jaffer sahib, in this interview, admitted to doing several “chillas” – a 40 day period of non-stop practice for 12 hours through the night. He fortified himself just with tea three times through the night and by chewing paan with tobacco in it.
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Ustad Shujaat Khan said he admired and respected the Ustad for his immense practice – “he could play anything on the sitar,” he says.
His technique on his instrument is wonderfully analysed by the very cerebral performer Pandit Biswajit Roy Chaudhary.
He says, “The various innovations in sound production on sitar such as meend through harmonics, playing double strings together, producing meends, and taans with only the left hand technique by “krintan” that the Ustad played effortlessly over a century back are all getting reproduced by the modern day young masters through the aid of pick up and other electronic gadgets.”
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Ustad Amjad Ali Khan says, “It’s a great loss in the world of music; he gave a different dimension to sitar. He was a rare sitariya who used to play “sthayi” (the initial phase in a composition) as well as “antara” (the secondary part of the composition) – very few instrumentalists today do this – it’s only the “mukhra” (the main tune of the composition) that is picked up.”