Jyotish Choudhury and Damodar Lal Kabra: Ragas - Sunrise and Sunset [United Artists UNS 15550] LP originally released in the US in 1968

This LP is one of many which were recorded by the venerable field recordist Deben Bhattacharya and is apparently either a reissue of a Dutch Philips LP or was licensed from Philips. The sound and documentation is much more in the style of a field recording than a typical Hindustani music LP.

The LP front cover announces that we will be listening to "India's finest exponents of the sitar and sarod." It can sometimes seem a bit like Garrison Keillor's fictitious little town Lake Wobegone, Minnesota, where all the children are above average. 

All I know about Damodar Lal Kabra is that he played sarod, was the elder brother of guitarist Brij Bhushan Kabra, and was one of sitarist and music festival promoter Manju Mehta's teachers. He apparently also was the first student of Ali Akbar Khan and therefore was a member of the Maihar Gharana. It's a shame that the notes to this LP contain no biographical information and that the internet has so little information about this musician. 

A comment on the transfer of this same album on another, much better blog mentions that he released several LPs and cassettes, but I can find no evidence of this.

Jyotish Choudhury was a sitar player from Benares. As far as I can tell, this is his only recording. 


side 1:
Raga Natabhairava (sarod and tabla)

side 2:
Raga Yaman Kalyan (surbahar)
Raga Bhimpalashri (surashringar)

It is somewhat difficult to make out, but if you look carefully at the top right hand corner of this copy's front cover, you will see that it is stamped as a promotional copy, likely either handed out to a radio station or given out to a magazine or newspaper for review. I discovered Indian classical music through promotional copies of Nimbus CDs sent to the newspaper i worked at as a music writer from 1988-93, but that is for another post. Relevant to this transfer is the widely held belief among so-called audiophiles that promotional copies are generally better sounding than regular copies, because of the theory that they were pressed earlier in the manufacturing run, and therefore while the metal stampers were still in good shape. Maybe that is true. What also might be true is that UA was and is infamous for using grades of vinyl several steps below the best, and for taking short cuts in certain aspects of disk manufacturing. Overall, however, this was a EX- condition record and there were no overwhelming obstacles placed in my way when transferring.


Here is an audio recording of Damodar Lal Kabra and Brij Bhutan Kabra performing Raga Yaman Kalyan (part one)...

...and here is part two.


Here is half an LP of music by Damodar Lal Kabra, also recorded by Deben Bhattacharya.

Equipment used in transfer: 

Preparation: Ultrasonic cleaning for 20 minutes in plain water, followed by a quick vacuum drying with a VPI 16.5 cleaning machine

Turntable:  Audio-technica AT-LP-1240

Cartridge: Shure M97x
Pre-amplification: Vintage refurbished Pioneer SX-780.

Recorder: Sony PCM-M10 at 24bit/44.1kHz resolution

The high resolution file was normalized and slight EQ was applied (to eliminate most of the subsonic rumble from the vinyl) in Audacity. The java-based "ClickRepair" app was utilized to eliminate clicks and static sounds. Real-time auditing of the repair process is possible with this app (in other words one can listen to just the noise being removed while the file is playing) and this was undertaken to ensure that no musical information was lost. Conversion to the lossless compression file type FLAC as well as lossy mp3 took place in xAct.

24bit 44.1 kHz FLAC file

(high resolution file suitable for listening on computer and some portable players)

16bit 44.1 kHz FLAC file

(standard resolution file suitable for burning a CDR)

320 kbps mp3 file

(highest possible quality compressed file for listening on portable devices)