Hindustan Times March 14 2004

Renowned sitar maestro and music director Ustad Vilayat Khan has died here. He was 76.

Khan was admitted to the Jaslok Hospital last month after being diagnosed with lung cancer and other health problems. He passed away a little before midnight Saturday.

Khan is survived by his wife, two sons Shujaat Khan and Hidayat Khan and two daughters.

Khan has been acclaimed for revolutionising sitar performance through his introduction of the 'gayaki ang', or vocal style.

Apart from participating in concerts, Khan also wrote the music score for films, notable among them, Satyajit Ray's "Jalsaghar".

Khan's body is being flown to Kolkata, where his last rites will be performed Monday.

BBC 15 March 2004

India is mourning one of its best-known sitar players, Vilayat Khan, who died in hospital in Bombay (Mumbai) at the weekend. 

Khan, 76, had been suffering from lung cancer. A pioneer of Indian classical music, he was one of the first sitar players to take his music overseas.

Khan came from six generations of musicians, and taught and performed Indian classical music in the United States.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said in a statement: "Vilayat Khan was a child prodigy to whom goes the credit of taking the sitar beyond the shores of the country."  

Khan, who lived in India and the US, was born in present-day Bangladesh. His father Ustad Inayat Khan was a famous sitar player too.

The younger Khan gave his first public performance when he was six years old, and made his first recordings two years later.

Apart from touring and recording in India and overseas, Khan also composed music for celebrated Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray's film, Jalsaghar

(The Music Room), and for the Ismail-Merchant-James Ivory film, The Guru.

In one of his last overseas performances, Khan regaled audiences last September in New York, where he was scheduled to perform again this year.

Khan's body was being flown to his home in the eastern city of Calcutta for burial on Monday, family members said.

Two of Khan's brothers - Ustad Rais Khan and Ustad Imrat Khan - play the sitar and the surbahar, a larger, deeper-toned relative of the sitar, respectively.

His sons, Shujaat Khan and Hidayat Khan, also play the sitar.

India Express March 14, 2004

Sitar maestro Ustad Vilayat Khan died of prolonged illness at a hospital in Mumbai on Saturday night, hospital sources said. He was 76.

Khan died at Jaslok Hospital following lung cancer, they said. He was admitted to the hospital on February 26 for treatment of diabetes, 

hypertension and lung cancer. The end came at around 11:25 pm, the sources said. His body is being flown to Kolkata where his last rites 

would be performed, family sources said

The New York Times March 15, 2004

Ustad Vilayat Khan, one of India's most renowned sitar players, died on Saturday at Jaslok Hospital in Mumbai, the
Indo-Asian News Service reported. He was 76 and had residences in Dehra Dun, India, and Princeton, N.J.

The cause was lung cancer and other problems, the news service reported.

Mr. Khan represented both tradition and maverick innovation in his music. He was celebrated for developing a sitar style
called gayaki ang, or vocal style, that brought the inflections of vocal music to his improvisations in the
classical repertory. He retuned the drone strings of the sitar and invented a technique of bending a note after it
was plucked, tracing a sonic after-image. His style became widely influential across Indian music.

Mr. Khan, his brother Ustad Rais Khan, who plays sitar, and his brother Ustad Imrat Khan, who plays the surbahar (a
larger, deeper-toned relative of the sitar), represent the sixth generation of a family and school of musicians, the
Imdad Khani gharana, that dates back to the Mughal Empire. His sons Shujaat Khan and Hidayat Khan, who are sitar
players, continue the family tradition. They survive Mr Khan along with his brothers, his wife and two daughters.

NDTV (New Delhi Television) reported that the prime minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said in a statement, "Ustad
Vilayat Khan was a child prodigy to whom goes the credit of taking the sitar beyond the shores of this country."

Mr. Khan was born in 1928 in Gouripur, a village that is now part of Bangladesh. His father, Ustad Inayat Khan, was a
well-known sitar player, and Vilayat Khan studied with him and gave his first public performances when he was 6. He
made his first recordings two years later. He also studied vocal music with his mother's father, Bande Hussain Khan,
and her brother, Zinda Hussain Khan, applying what he learned to his phrasing on the sitar.

He was 10 when his father died, but he continued to perform and to study with his father's brother, Wahid Khan, who
played the surbahar. He sometimes practiced until his fingers bled.

He was widely acclaimed as a teenager, earning five encores and nationwide notice at a concert in 1944. He went on to
tour India and the world. In 1964 and 1968, the Indo-Asian News Service reported, he rejected the highest civilian
honors of the Indian government, the Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan awards, saying the awards committee was
incompetent in judging artistic creativity. Among many other honors in the course of his career, he became a member of
the Sangeet Natak Akademi, an honor given to only 30 living artists at any time.

In addition to performing and recording, Mr. Khan composed music for the Satyajit Ray film "The Music Room" (1958) and
for the Ismail Merchant-James Ivory film "The Guru" (1969). He performed regularly in New York, most recently in
September 2003 at Avery Fisher Hall, and he had been scheduled to perform on May 22 at Zankel Hall. The World
Music Institute, which is producing that concert in partnership with Carnegie Hall, announced that the program
will become a tribute to Mr. Khan's music.

The Times of India 15 March 2004

The acerbic Ustad who could make his sitar sing with the mere touch of a finger passed away on Saturday night at a Mumbai hospital.

Ustad Vilayat Khan's contribution to the world of Hindustani classical music remains unparalleled. So are incidents of his giving vent to the spleen.  

Descendant of a lineage going back seven generations and comprising India 's greatest musicians, all his life he ridiculed first-generation musicians who were hailed. "You find out the pedigree of even a dog, how can you get God's greatest gift like music in one generation!" he once commented.

Ustad Vilayat Khan was the first to introduce gayaki ang of playing the sitar by bringing the quality of string-playing close to the subtle nuances produced by human vocal chords.

In fact his sitar sang, and Ustadji himself loved to sing along with his sitar very often to prove the quality of gayaki ang produced by his mizrab. Ustadji was different not only in his manner of playing the sitar, the difference was written all over his personality. In times when artistes bend their back into multiple folds just to get an award or even a programme, he turned down two of the most prestigious awards conferred on him – Padmashree in 1964 and Padmabhushan in 1968.And the reason given by him for refusing the awards was, "the deciding committees of these awards were not competent enough to judge my music".  The reason behind his acid tongue remained his frustration nurtured for a lifetime against another sitarist whom he considered to be much junior in terms of talent. Another issue that aroused his temper was even a mention of his daughter whom he disowned. Ustadji was an interviewer's nightmare. The soft-spoken Ustad would first measure up the interviewer before granting an audience.

Last year he came to perform at a concert in Patiala for the Heritage Festival. During an interview when he was asked to comment on the kind of music his daughter Zila Khan was propagating, he refused to comment. Any number of pleas would not break his silence on the matter. The Ustad did not like any deviation from the pre-decided questions he had agreed to answer.

Though Shujat, his son, too has dabbled with fusion music, Ustadji's eyes turned bright with the mere mention of his promising son. Fortunately music lovers can still listen to Ustadji's singing sitar in Shujat's music.

The Associated Press March 15, 2004

Ustad Vilayat Khan, one of India's leading sitar players, died Saturday at Bombay's Jaslok Hospital. He was 76.

Khan had lung cancer, diabetes and hypertension, the Press Trust of India reported.

He was born in Gouripur, a village that is now part of Bangladesh, into a family of musicians that traced its lineage six or seven
generations back to the Moghul courts and ultimately to Miyan Tansen, the court musician of the Emperor Akbar of the late 16th century.

Since his first major public appearance in Bombay in 1943, Khan recorded extensively and toured South Asia, China, Africa, Europe and
the Soviet Union.

He made the United States his second home, and was a frequent guest lecturer at Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, Calif. He also
composed music for Satyajit Ray's classic film "Jalsaghar" and for Ismail Merchant and James Ivory's English film "Guru."

Khan was credited with creating his own style of playing sitar, a traditional Indian string instrument popularized worldwide by Ravi
Shankar. He was credited with introducing a vocal style in sitar playing, which gave the audience a sense that the instrument was
singing.

Khan complained that his contribution to music wasn't given due recognition by the government. He turned down national awards in 1964
and 1968, saying that members of the award committees were not competent to judge his music.

He is survived by two wives, two sons and two daughters.

Daily Times, Pakistan 

LAHORE: The death of India’s sitar wizard Ustad Vilayat Khan’s has reverberated around music lovers. His passing leaves a vacuum 

that may never be filled. He died of a heart attack at Bombay’s Jaslok Hospital a few days ago.The sitar player was born in a family 

of musicians, Ittawa Gharana, in 1928 in Indore, a family that traced its lineage back to Mian Tansen of Mughal Emperor Akbar’s court. 

He was son of an outstanding sitar player, Ustad Inayat Khan, and his mother Bashiren was from an eminent vocalist family in 

Saharanpur and Nahaan. At the age of 11, Ustaad Vilayat Khan joined All India Radio (AIR) Delhi in 1939 and ZA Bokahri, the then 

director general, appointed him a radio staff artist. He quickly became a well-known figure in the sitar world. Pakistan also has the 

honour of having a chain of pupils that trickles down from Ustad Vilayat Khan’s family. Ustad Rahim Baksh Khan, father of 

Ustad Sharif Khan Punch Walay, was a student of Ustad Inayat Khan. Ustad Abdul Latif Khan, a leading Pakistani sitar player, 

is a student of Ustad Vilayat Khan and Ustad Rahim Baksh. Ustad Vilayat Khan’s nephew, Ustad Raees Ahmed Khan, lives in Karachi, 

but was not a student of his maternal uncle. Raees Khan’s son Farhan Khan is also a sitar player.

Ustad Vilayat Khan’s close friends told Daily Times that in the 70s, the Indian government awarded him the Padma Bohshan Award, 

the highest Indian award, but he refused it because Pandit Ravi Shankar, a sitar player he held in great esteem, had not been awarded. 

Next year, the government again awarded him the Aftab-e-Sitar Award, the Padma Boshan Award and a sitar made of silver. 

His last public concert was with Shehnai legend Ustad Bismillah Khan in December 2003 in Kolkota. 

Talking to Daily Times, Ustad Abdul Latif Khan, a student of Ustad Rahim Baksh Kahn, described the death of the great maestro as 

an “irreparable loss”. He said it would be difficult to see another Vilayat Khan for ages to come. He said Ustad Vilayat Khan transformed 

the was sitar was played, giving a new dimension to North Indian music. He said no other sitar player could match Ustad Vilayat Khan’s 

Alap, Gaat, Jore and Jala. Farrukh Bashir, a noted sitar player, said Ustad Vilayat was a genius, the first to introduce the style of playing 

called Gayike Ang. The style of his playing was so musical that all new sitar players were copying his style. Mr Bashir said the 

maestro was a great innovator and improviser, so that each of his sitar recitals had an element of surprise. He had introduced sitar to 

the layman, who had no knowledge of classical but recognised good music when he heard it. Ustad Ghulam Haider Khan, a renowned 

classical singer, said the death of Ustad Vilayat was a great loss to the world of music. He was one of the greatest musicians of the 

subcontinent. His performances were miraculous, with the audience captivated and enthralled. “No one can fill his space,” he added. 

Zara Suleman Cheema, a Lahore-based contemporary sitar player and student of Ustad Abdul Latif Khan, said she felt unworthy even 

to comment on the great ustad, but said he would inspire generations of musicians to come. “The masterpieces he played will be 

remembered for a long time,” said Ms Cheema. Talking to Daily Times from Karachi, Ustad Raees Khan said there had never been 

a sitar player like Vilayat Khan and there probably never would be another. He said Ustad Shujjaat Hussian Khan, the late maestro’s son, 

should become the diligent successor. He said Mr Khan was a very stylish person and had a large collection of guns, pipes, sunglasses 

and watches. He was a very good billiard player and hunter.

Dawn, Pakistan 15 March 2004

NEW DELHI, March 14: Sitar maestro Ustad Vilayat Khan, who ruled the world of Indian classical music as a widely adulated monarch for more than five decades, died in Mumbai on Saturday after a brief bout of lung cancer. He was 76.

His close associates and family members said the end came at the Jaslok Hospital in Mumbai and was peaceful. This reporter heard Ustad Vilayat Khan in Amritsar on Dec 5, 2003, when he had to inexplicably leave the stage briefly but returned soon to continue the concert.

His right index finger, used for wearing the painfully hard wire plectrum or mizrab, bled that evening and he remarked: "Aaj lahoo kuchh zyada hi bah gaya hai (Blood has flowed a bit excessively today)".

But he carried on singing and playing. His last public concert was a duet with the ageing Shehnai wizard Ustad Bismillah Khan on Dec 27 in Kolkota, when they played Raag Yaman, an evening melody.

Music critic Gowri Ramnarayan recalls how, when he was only 11, Vilayat Khan, with his tousled hair and crumpled clothes had come to Delhi from Kolkota to meet Mr Z.A Bokhari, the director-general of the All India Radio (AIR).

"I am Vilayat Khan, son of the late Inayat Khan Sahib," he had said proudly, suppressing his sobs. "If you try to send me back, I'll run away again." Mr Bokhari, who was later to head Radio Pakistan, decided to care for the fatherless child, to nurture and enrich his musical talent.

After all, young Vilayat Khan was the scion of the Ittawa Gharana whose stalwarts traced their line back to Tansen of Emperor Akbar's court. Mr Bokhari not only provided shelter, clearing a garage for the child's quarter, but also engaged him as an AIR artiste at Rs 10 a month.

This was after he answered the question, "Can you play the sitar you are carrying around?", with an immediate burst of Raag Bhairavi. Staff members gathered to listen. Senior sitarist Hyder Husain Khan of Jaipur Gharana exclaimed: "Arey! Inayat Khan is still alive. Here, in this boy."

Father Inayat Khan had died too early to have trained son Vilayat (born 1928), though the child had learnt enough to accompany him on the stage. But the father left a fire, constantly stoked by mother Bashiren Begum, daughter of a family of eminent vocalists in Saharanpur and Nahaan.

In the evening of his life, Ustad Vilayat Khan loved to indulge in the virtual reality of memories, of a past which anchored his growth, inspired his creative departures. "Too much tradition makes for dead wood. But I don't want so much progress as to lose my identity," he would say and laugh.

The Ustad said once: "Only (the legendary vocalist) Khan Sahib Abdul Karim Khan was my father's equal in laydari (rhythm) and surilapan (sweetness). I've not been able to play as perfectly as he did. Perhaps that's why I had to make my own style."

His veneer of simple contentment hid an unpredictable temper, an artiste's ego, creative frenzy, eccentricity, and an astonishing range of interests. Visitors would be stunned by his collection of guns, pipes from England, China and Japan, crockery from the Czar's and the Kaiser's tables, iridescent cutglass from Venice, Turkey and Bohemia, chandeliers painstakingly assembled by the Ustad himself. In his younger days, he had been an accomplished billiards player, horseman, swimmer and ballroom dancer.

The Ustad was consistently opposed to any fusion of Indian and Western music because of the fundamental difference in their approach to tone. One is harmonic, the other melodic. "On the piano you can play the Moonlight Sonata and on the sitar you can play raga Chandni Kedara . Don't mix them up," he would say.

Paying an emotional tribute to Vilayat Khan on Sunday, his lifelong rival sitar guru Pandit Ravi Shankar said: "He was truly a great artiste. We will sorely miss him."

Those who saw their rivalry exploding into the public arena recall how during a national concert in 1950, Ustad Vilayat Khan and Pandit Ravi Shankar played a duet at the famed Red Fort.

Ustad Allaudin Khan late, doyen of the Maihar Gharana of musicians and Ravi Shankar's teacher (and later father-in-law) was watching. At one point as they approached the fast paced crescendo, Ravi Shankar broke the main string of his sitar.

Allaudin Khan slapped him, but also hurled a few expletives at the young Vilayat Khan, who heard him out with humility. Those misunderstood essays were the beginning of Vilayat Khan's unique contribution to Indian classical music, the style of sitar playing now called Vilayatkhaani Baaj. This is the gayaki ang or fully-fledged vocal style, which he innovated, perfected and passed on to a school of disciples.

He wrought a total change in the dimension and impact of the music by modifying the base, frets, bridge and strings of the sitar. Only then could it handle the tremendous power of the right hand strokes, the long intricate oscillations, the lyrical fluidity, the itiurkis of khyal as well as the thuniri, exactly as the voice produced them. In short he gave a new direction to north Indian music.

He once told this correspondent that it was nearly impossible to pick up his intricate style of stroking the sitar if he did not verbally explain the nuances. "You can put a dozen TV cameras on my mizrab , but until I tell you with my mouth what I am doing, no slow motion replay is going to be of any use."

He decried showy drumming for the same reason. "All this sawaljawab razzmatazz which Ravi Shankar introduced, why, the sitarist performs, the drummer performs, even the audience performs! (Tabla players) Alla Rhakhaji and Zakir Husain dare not do it with me. If anyone tries tricks, I make him sweat. Once Kumar Bose said that playing tabla for me was death. He could not give the beat for a simple gat I played in teen taal !"

Ustad Vilayat Khan is survived by a son, Ustad Shujaat Khan, accomplished sitar player. One of his two daughters is a popular singer of ghazal and thumri, while his brother Ustad Imrat Khan is the last remaining great player of the Surbahaar, a heavier, more resonant version of the sitar.
 

NDTV March 13, 2004 (Mumbai):

Renowned sitarist and music director Ustad Vilayat Khan, aged 76 passed away today.

He had been ailing for some time with multiple problems and the end came in Jaslok Hospital late this evening.

He is survived by his wife, two sons Shujaat Khan and Hidayat Khan and two daughters.

Recognized internationally as one of India's greatest musicians, there are few to equal Ustaad Vilayat Khan in his mastery over the most widely known Indian instrument, the sitar.

He is known worldwide for revolutionizing sitar performance through his introduction of the gayaki ang, or vocal style.

Apart from winning laurels all over the world for his sitar, Ustad Vilayat Khan also gave music for some films, like Satyajit Ray's 'Jalsaghar'.
 

India Info 14 March 2004

New Delhi: Sitar maestro Ustad Vilayat Khan died of prolonged illness at a hospital in Mumbai late yesterday night (March 13, 2004), hospital sources said. He was 76.

Khan breathed his last at the Jaslok Hospital. He was suffering from lung cancer, the sources said. He was admitted to the hospital on February 26.

The end came at around 23:25 hours (IST). His body is being flown to Kolkata where his last rites will be performed on March 15, a family member said.

Mid-Day 15 March 2004

Times of Oman

MUMBAI — Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee yesterday expressed grief over the death of sitar maestro Ustad Vilayat Hussain Khan and said the country has lost one of the pioneers of classical music.

Ustad Vilayat Khan died of prolonged illness at a hospital here late on Saturday night, hospital sources said. He was 76.

Khan died at Jaslok Hospital following lung cancer, they said. He was admitted to the hospital on February 26 for treatment of diabetes, hypertension and lung cancer.

The end came at around 2325IST, the sources said.

His body was flown to Kolkata where his last rites were performed yesterday, family sources said.

“Ustad Vilayat Khan was a child prodigy to whom goes the credit of taking the sitar beyond the shores of the country,” Vajpayee said in a message.

Khan was a fellow of the Akademi, an exclusive honour in performing arts restricted to 30 living personalities at any point of time, it said.

Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach) vice-chairman S. K. Misra said Ustad Vilayat Khan was a national treasure and one of those rare people whom we encounter once in a lifetime. Ustad Vilayat Hussain Khan was one of the greatest sitar players of his generation.

Khan belonged to the family of great sitarists, including his father Ustad Inayat Hussain Khan and grandfather Imdad Hussain Khan, with the family lineage going back to several generations of musicians.

Both of his sons, Sujat and Hidayat, and brother Imrat and nephew Rais Khan are accomplished sitar players.

Vilayat Khan, who used to spend most of his time in his second home in New Jersey in the US, was born in 1928 in Gouripur, now in Bangladesh, and was initiated to music quite early in life.

Since his father died early, he received most of his training from maternal grandfather Ustad Bande Hussain Khan and maternal uncle Zinda Khan.

He did his first recording at a tender age of eight and went on to achieve worldwide fame with his brilliant sitar playing.

He was probably the first Indian musician to go out of the country and perform in England after independence in 1951. He maintained this tradition of performing abroad till his last days as he used to spend eight months a year abroad.

Vilayat Khan, a diabetic for long, was recently detected with lung cancer.

He is survived by two wives, sons Shujaat and Hidayat and daughters Yaman Khan and Zila Khan.

Considered by most music critics as the finest exponent of sitar the country has ever produced, Vilayat Khan was credited with creating his own style of sitar play.

Since he had a deep interest in Mughal music as well, he invented the ‘gayaki’ (vocal) style in sitar playing which used to give the audience a sense of singing on sitar.

For his brilliant sitar play, he was the only artiste to receive the title of ‘Aftab-e-sitar’ (the sun of sitar) by president Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and ‘Bharat Sitar Samrat’ by Artistes Association of India. — PTI

Liberation, France (translation)

Légende of the Indian music, Vilayat Khan died of a cancer on March 13, in a hospital of Bombay. Indian the Prime Minister has just greeted officially his memory. Master of the sitar, the string instrument emblematic of the classic art Hindustani, music of India of North, Vilayat Khan goes down from a line of musicians which goes up in XVIe century, to the court of the moghol Akbar. Supposed born in 1928, in what is currently Bangladesh, Vilayat studies the family music near his/her father, when this one dies. Orphan at eleven years, the wonder, contrary to the majority of the considered Indian artists, will not have had true a gourou. Its independent spirit will make it possible Vilayat Khan to interpret with freedom and control the figures of the Indian classical music, in particular the refined art of the khyal . The sitarist finds there his style personal, this famous gayaki-ang, manner of making sound the sitar like a song, which he invents as of the years 1960. Vilayat runs the scenes of planet, playing for the large ones of this world, of which Mao Tsé Toung. But contrary to the other celebrity of the Indian music, Delighted Shankar, it does not answer the requests of the pop stars. It will be a long time among the music lovers, pro-Delighted Shankar and the pro-Vilayat Khan. This last camp gathered more musicians and singers. Vilayat Khan lived in the United States where it taught its art.

Los Angeles Times 16 March 2004

Ustad Vilayat Khan, one of India's leading sitar players, died Saturday at Bombay's Jaslok Hospital. He was 76.

Khan had lung cancer, diabetes and hypertension, the Press Trust of India reported.

He was born in Gouripur, a village that is now part of Bangladesh, into a family of musicians that traced its lineage six or seven generations back to the Moghul courts and ultimately to Miyan Tansen, the court musician of the Emperor Akbar of the late 16th century.

Since his first major public appearance in Bombay in 1943, Khan recorded extensively and toured South Asia, China, Africa, Europe and the Soviet Union.

He made the United States his second home, and was a frequent guest lecturer at Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, Calif. He also composed music for Satyajit Ray's classic film "Jalsaghar" and for Ismail Merchant and James Ivory's English film "Guru."

Khan was credited with creating his own style of playing sitar, a traditional Indian string instrument popularized worldwide by Ravi Shankar. He was credited with introducing a vocal style in sitar playing, which gave the audience a sense that the instrument was singing.

Khan complained that his contribution to music wasn't given due recognition by the government. He turned down national awards in 1964 and 1968, saying that members of the award committees were not competent to judge his music.

He is survived by two wives, two sons and two daughters.

Asia Net