Monday, January 17, 2011

Mouth Organ Maestro Madan Kumar Live

Living legend mouth organ virtuoso Madan Kumar was in Ahmedabad on a private visit when we requested him to be at the practice session of the Harmonica Club of Gujarat. Humility is the hallmark of great masters, and so with Madanji. He obliged the club members by his presence and remained with us till well past midnight. Though he has been suffering from severe cough and cold, he rendered a few numbers at our insistence.

Madanji uses a variety of techniques to explore the full potential of this tiny musical instrument to produce mesmerizing melodies, bringing in variations to the original tunes. We present here two of his numbers that exemplify his mastery over mouth organ.




Musician from London comes calling

Members of the Harmonica Club of Gujarat were privileged to have two distinguished mouth organ players amidst them during their practice session on Monday evening. They were mouth organ maestro Madan Kumar and London-based photographer Nitin Patel. While Madan Kumar has become a part of the HCG, blessing the club members with his presence during his brief visits to Ahmedabad, for Nitin Patel this was his first encounter with the HCG members.

The musical evening hosted by Chakshul Pandya continued well past midnight. A trigger-happy Nitin Patel kept on clicking photographs while the HCG members practiced. Nitin has promised to send us the photographs he has clicked which when received we will put up on the HCG blog.

In the meantime, here are the videos of three numbers played by Nitin: