I’m returning to India for a track by Master Laloo, a singer from Gujarat, presumably. Collecting Indian music has always been daunting to me – I love it, but there are so many excellent artists out there, I’m overwhelmed. That said, I enjoy what I have, and what I continue to pick up. Hell, it’s all a giant experiment, for the most part, and that’s what continues to make it fun.
While Laloo doesn’t perform some of the same vocal gymnastics as other masters of Indian classical music, there’s something very appealing to me about the combination of voice, harmonium, and tabla. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that I enjoy listening to this record, which is what it’s all about. It was recorded in Mumbai by Gramophone Company engineer Arthur James Twine, ca. 1928.
I could find nothing on the Master in question. According to a listener from India who wrote in, the translated Gujurati title means “The way you do Karmas, you get fruits for it immediately.”
On a side note, R. and I went to a concert of Central Asian music in Los Angeles the other night. I always feel nervous beforehand that a concert like that will be too faux world-y for me, but it was very good, and one artist stood out: the Kazakh singer and dombra player Ulzhan Baibussynova. Although she performed only three songs, they were riveting. She appears on the recent Smithsonian Folkways release Bardic Divas.
Technical Notes
Label: HMV
Issue Number: N. 2569
Matrix Number: BX. 4884
Excavated Shellac 