Singh Is King, Jagjit Singh - The Ghazal King & More Options

[swarapriya]

Jagjit Singh - The Ghazal King

Jagjit Singh. He was a true legend in his own time. In a span of nearly 35 years, by several estimations, he released 80 plus discs. But during the same time, along with his singing wife Chitra (see the attached pictures below), he released nearly 400 albums. These included, apart from the individual albums, various collections of songs from his released albums. This number is truly an astonishing achievement.

Jagjit Singh, though popularly known for his ghazals, also had numerous devotional albums to his credit. He also was active in many films. He was occasionally participated in composing music for TV shows. He sang in many languages, but mostly in Hindi and his mother tongue, Punjabi.

He was decorated with innumerable awards. Prominent of these include Padma Bhushan, Sahitya Academy Award, Sangeet Natak Academy Award, Sahitya Kala Academy Award, and host of others.

I was encouraged by several members of this Forum to start a thread on Jagjitji. Finally I decided to take the plunge.

Jagjitji, who passed away in 2011 at the age of 70, left us with a legacy of overwhelming song contributions. Singhji was affectionately known as the Ghazal King. Because he lives through his work in our hearts forever, Singhji is still the King.

I will start this thread with Singhji’s discography. I split this into various parts, sorted alphabetically. Each part of the discography lists 20 albums. I will upload these parts below.

I will follow up this with a devotional album of Jagjitji.

Next, the discography…

[swarapriya]

Aavishkar (1973)

This is one of the fine movies about feuding couples where the two principal actors, Sharmila and Rajesh Khanna, gave superb performances. There are only few songs in this movie but each one of them is a gem. The song "Naina Hain" by Asha is a real beauty. She sang with such deep pathos and passion that it lingers in your thoughts for some time.

Jagjitji and Chitraji sang only one song in this film. It is also a sheer beauty. It appears twice in the film. I am uploading the second part in the second post. The quality of this part is just fair. I am also uploading a slightly different take on the same song rendered in classical style by Jagjitji in a concert in Mumbai. It is heart hugging and if you are only used to Jagjitji's ghazals this singing will simply blow you out. Done in Bharavi Raag, it is one superbly executed lovely. Incidentally, this song was apparently written by Wajad Ali Shah, the Last Nawab of Avadh. I cannot authenticate this but the CD simply lists lyrics as traditional.

I am uploading songs from this album in two back-to-back posts. The first post contains all songs from an original soundtrack album. The second post contains songs taken from a DVD.

Now for the songs in the first post...