By : Satish Chopra
Source : http://www.dailytimes.com.pk
Category : Film School Online
Hindi film panorama after the commencement of talking era, witnessed a variety of personalities attached to different faculties of production; may it be acting, direction, photography, editing, dialogue writing, music composing and or singing.
Amongst a large number of the music composers, we had some rarest of the rare glittering gems, who not only fashioned some captivating melodies, but also shaped the destiny of a large number of singers. This was in view of the fact that these maestro music composers had a profound understanding of lyrics, instrumentation, classical music base, the voice quality of the respective singer and insight of the eminence of recording. This was perhaps one of the foremost reasons that music and musicians of first three decades (1931-60) ie after the beginning of film recording are considered as all time greats.
One amongst such composers was Sajjad Hussain, who was known for his contentious personality, but he created some immortal melodies, which were altogether different from all others. But, with the passage of time, he has been completely forgotten.
Sajjad Hussain was a master of a number of musical instruments; be it a violin, Veena, Jaltarang, flute, piano, banjo, accordion, Hawaiin and Spanish guitar, sitar, clarinet, harp and Mandolin. He could even play Mandolin with perfection even for classical ragas.
In the All India Music Conference held at Kolkata in the year 1956; where greats of classical music such as Vinayak Rao Patvardhan, Ali Akbar Khan, Allaudin Khan, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ahmed Jaan Thirakwa and Nikhil Banerjee were present; Sajjad Husain played classical ragas 'Shivranjani' and 'Harikauns' on Mandolin. The listeners including the maestros were spell bound at his classical playing of Mandolin, which is considered a completely un-traditional musical instrument.
Sajjad Husain as music director fashioned some immortal melodies in the voices of Noorjehan, Rattanbai, Nirmala Devi (mother of actor Govinda), Lata Mangeshkar, Suraiya, Geeta Roy, Asha Bhonsle, Mohd Rafi, Talat Mahmood, Surender and others.
A few lines about the career-graph of the maestro. Sajjad was born at Sitamau (Central Province now Madhya Pradesh) on June 15, 1917. His father Mohd Amir Khan, used to play sitar. But, Sajjad could not confine his learning to sitar only. He additionally learnt playing Veena, Jaltarang, Accordian, violin, Spanish and Hawaiin guitar, flute, piano, banjo and harp. Thereby he could brilliantly deploy these instruments for the background music effects and also created some enthralling sound effects.
He came to Bombay in the year 1940 and was introduced to Mir Allahbuksh (father of Meena Kumari) who was a composer and associated with Minerva Movietone. Mir was very much impressed with Sajjad's mandolin playing, as a result he took him as his assistant.
Later on, he joined Pt Hanuman Prasad, another composer and assisted him for the music of film 'Gaali' (1944). In this film, Sajjad composed two songs of Nirmala Devi -'Aag lagey saawan mein' and 'Ab aa jaa dil na lagey'.
Sajjad Husain got his major break in the year 1944 for the film 'Dost' starring Noorjehan and Motilal. Noorjehan sang some memorable songs - 'Badnaam muhabbat kaun karey', 'Ab kaun hei mera', and 'Koyee prem ka de key sandesa'. The film until date is remembered amongst the ardent music lovers of Indian sub-continent because of such musical super-hits.
If you have listened to these captivating melodies, you must have observed the beauty of delivery of the word 'Badnaam' and a charismatic pause thereafter. Besides her expression of thought and an extra-ordinary quality of sur, it was rated as a classic! Then, the pain of parting and sorrow transformed in other numbers - 'Ab kaun hei mera' and 'Koyee prem ka de key sandesha'. The songs provided an incredible impact on the listeners.
Shaukat Hussain Rizvi, the paramour and later on the husband of Noorjehan, who produced the film 'Dost', after viewing its grand success observed that entire credit for the success of these songs goes to Noorjehan, who sang such fabulous melodies.
Sajjad could not digest such remarks and vowed not to compose a song for Noorjehan for her future films. As a result, for her next film 'Jugnu', the music was composed by Firoze Nizami. Noorjehan respected Sajjad Husain the most. According to her, Sajjad Husain was the greatest composer amongst all. "He was a man of high self-esteem. Shaukat was rude to him and Sajjad warned him in that insulting tone. Shyam Sunder and Naushad are also great but nobody can ever reach the level of Sajjad Hussain," she is reported to have said.
Down memory lane, in his subsequent films, Sajjad composed a number of fabulous melodies viz 'Bhool ja aye dil muhabbat ka fasana, kisi se dil lagana' - Lata Mangeshkar and 'Saajna din baahure hamare' - Geeta Roy -film 'Khel' (1950) and 'Aaj mere naseeb ne mujhko rula, rula diya' - Lata Mangeshkar - film 'Hulchu' (1951) which bears the complete signatures of Sajjad.
In film 'Saiyyan' (1951) Sajjad composed seven amazing melodies and each one was different from the other. In particular, the singer Lata and the composer were totally different in -'Kismat mein mein khusi ka naam nahin ey gum ke savere tu hi bata' and 'Kaali kaali raat re, dil bara satay teri yaad aye'. Sajjad Hussain was certainly at his best in 'Sangdil' (1952). Each of its eight melodies was a glittering gem!
Source : http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012%5C03%5C13%5Cstory_13-3-2012_pg9_6
