Greatest Hits of Pankaj Mullick - rec. 1935-47

Pankaj Mullick - The Greatest Hits of Pankaj Mullick

Angel - EMI - EAHA.1003 - P.1962

Tracks:

A1 Aaj Apni Mehnaton Ka

A2 Aai Bahar aaj *

A3 Piya milan ko jana

A4 Sharabi soch na kar

A5 Yeh koun aaj aya

A6 Madbhari Rut Jawani

B1 Yeh raaten yeh mousam

B2 Pran chahe naina na chahe

B3 Tere mandir ka hun

B4 Jab chand mera nikla

B5 Main ne aaj piya

B6 Main rota hun

* clip of this song on YouTube (rather skippy recording but you have the LP to listen to)

It seems only fair to start off with Pankaj Mullick both because he wrote so much material that it was enough for both him and K.L. Saigal and other artists as well. He was a very good singer and at the same time a very productive composer that wrote innumerable hits of the time. Unfortunately there has been no CD reissues devoted entirely to his singing. To my knowledge there is only one CD split with Saigal on Hindustan Records and a recent 2 CD release of his songs featuring him singing on some of the tracks. I have not listened carefully to those yet but I'll report back later. Of course he is represented with one or two tracks on innumerable compilations but mostly the same tracks. His compositions are all over the place sung by both contemporary and modern singers.

Pankaj Kumar Mullick 1904 - 1978

A Short Biography

Pankaj Kumar Mullick is one of the most notable singers from Bengal. He is very much known for his contribution towards Rabindra Sangeet. He has done music direction in many Bengali movies and received the “Best Music Director” award for his work in Bengali Film “Dui Purush”.

Pankaj Mullick was born on 20th April 1904 in Calcutta, India. Pankaj Mullick was son of Manimohan Mullick who had a great interest in traditional music, and would invite eminent singers and instrumentalists to perform during religious festivals. Born in a middle class Bengali family, it was here that Pankaj Mullick drew inspiration from classical Hindustani music. From a very early age, he decided that his vocation would be music, and though enrolled in college, he did not pursue higher education. After completing his college studies he became a student of Durgadas Banerjee. Later, he joined Dinendra Nath Tagore for learning music. His first record was released by the Videophone Company in the year 1926.

Pankaj Mullick was lucky to be introduced to the Tagore family, which was to have an everlasting influence upon him. Rabindra Sangeet became his forte, and he is the only man who has tuned a Rabindranath poem to music, 'Diner Seshey, Ghoomer Deshey' with the great poet's total approval. The approval of the great poet came to Pankaj after endless numbers of hours of waiting on him, and the story has it that it was for a college function that Pankaj had approached the great poet to have his permission to perform one of his poetries, to which Rabindranath Tagore asked him to sing out the composition that he had in mind. It was after hearing his composition that Rabindranath was so very overcome with the tune that he granted him a total approval for all his poetries. Thus was through Pankaj Mullick's songs that Rabindra Sangeet became popular in every Bengali household, even raising great interest among Western music connoisseurs.

Pankaj Mullick regarded the balance and equanimity of the mind as his best asset, providing him with status as a human being and an artiste. Pankaj Mullick enjoyed a very close relationship with AIR (All India Radio) since its very inception in 1928, then a private broadcasting organization. For very many years, his Sunday music lessons had thousands of listeners, specially among young girls. It was at his initiative that the use of the tabla was introduced to keep rhythm for Rabindra Sangeet, which the poet had not previously adopted.

Though not really an actor, even though appearing in some six or seven films, his first experience was in a small role in Chashar Meye. It is interesting to note that when this silent film was being exhibited at Calcutta, Pankaj Mullick would conduct his orchestra to provide background music. Pankaj Mullick and R. C. Boral supplemented each other on many occasions whilst composing music for New Theatres' films. One of the Pankaj Mullick's most notable scores was for Mukti in which director P.C. Barua had assigned him a role.

On joining the New Theatres in 1933, he composed music for 'Yahudi ki Ladki'. He assisted R. C. Boral in Dhoop Chaon (1935), Karorpati and Manzil (1936) and President (1937). His Bengali films include Mukti (1937), Desher Mati (1938), Badididi (1939), Jiban Maran (1939), Nartaki (1940), Daktar (1940), Meenakshi (1942), Dikshul (1943), Dui Purush (1945), Nurse Sisi (1947), Ramer Sumati (1947), Pratibad (1948), Roop Katha (1950), Nabin Yatra (1953), Mahaprasthaner Pathey (1953), Rajkamal (1955), Louha-Kapat (1957), Aahwan (1961) and Bighalita Karuna Jahabi Jamuna (1972).

Pankaj Mullick wrote many books, a few of them are : Geet Valmiki, Swara Lipika, Raga Lakshana Geet Manjari and Mahishasura Mardina. He received Dada Saheb Phalke Award in 1972. He died on 19th February 1978. The first person to reach his residence was R.C.Boral.

Some more YouTube clips from movies starring Pankaj Mullick.

The above is a quote from an article on him spread on several indian webpages. I am sorry, but I was not able to find the original first post. anyhow I think it is a good comprehensive outline of the man. I'll see if I can give a better reference for the quotation later.

Pankaj Mullick has been posted

Music ▼ +

Roots of Bollywood - The New Theatres Era - Filmi & Plates. [1930-1950]

Hindustan Records 78 rpm label

Filmi & Plates - Early Songs from India. [1930-1950]

Early Indian Movie songs - Roots of Bollywood

Saigal, Mullick & The New Theaters Ltd. era

I am introducing a long time passion here, namely Filmi Music, and since the beginning of the seventies, when I started collecting early film music from India, I borrowed, from a fellow student and poet from Bengal, my first LP's of Pankaj Mullick, Satchin Dev Burman and above all, Kundan Lal Saigal, I have never since stopped enjoying the wonderful soothing voices of them and their contemporaries. and have traced down a lot of those recordings. It is a great medicine and I always carry some with me for weary moments.

Calcutta in the 40's

"Filmi" is the indian common expression for songs from movies & "Plates" originally how 78 rpm shellac records were and is referred to in India.

Poster from the movie Tansen a big Saigal hit

"Early songs from India", well it includes music from stagedrama before and during the film era, and I wanted to be able to include songs that were popular but not neccesarily included in any movie or drama, but of similar genre, like light classical, contemporary popular lovesongs and comical songs and ditties.

[1930-1950] Choosing these years for he period may sound strange, and maybe extend a bit too late for my intention, but my hopes were of course not to immediately jump into modern or contemporary "Bollywood" movie songs, rather concentrate on the origins of the same! Even to the point of excluding the sixties and later, even including the fifties, much of what is considered the golden era, I felt I was stretching it a bit looking at what I really had in mind. I will begin with "The New Theatre's Era" including my absolute favourites Saigal & Mullick.

I will first supply a little background to the time by quoting an article about the Hindustani Records company, a very important National label at the time, later on succseeded by INRECO.

Early Indian Movie songs - Saigal, Mullick & The New Theaters Ltd. era

It is said that CC Saha or Chandi Charan had been introduced to Tagore in Heidelberg by Soumendranath Tagore, and the poet was among the 500 shareholders of Hindusthan Record.

Rabindranath Tagore

Chandi Charan visited Germany to buy recording equipment, and subsequently George Neumann from that country helped him trap the voices of great artistes on resin. The company had the distinction of bringing a Neumann disc-cutting machine from Germany in 1932.

This piece of antiquity has since been donated to the Birla Industrial Museum. Hindusthan was the first to transfer from optical film to disc.

At the same time, CC Saha opened a well-stocked music shop at the crossing of Madan Street and Dharamtalla. Although it is dusty, it is still a mecca for lovers of Bengali music. It may sound surprising, but the shop still sells Bengali music from its golden era down to present times.

Hindusthan Musical Products Ltd, as it was officially called, can take credit for making the first recordings of classical music stalwarts such as Ustad Faiyaz Khan and Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, besides launching a star like Kundan Lal Saigal.

The first Indian-owned music company attracted a galaxy of artistes like Pankaj Mallik and Sachin Deb Burman. After BN Sircar set up his film production company named New Theatres in Calcutta, its songs were initially released under that label. From the 1940s onwards, the company extended its repertoire to include songs popular in the Hindi-speaking belt, and numerous recording were conducted in Bhojpuri, UP folk, Chhattisgarhi folk, qawwali, bhajans and aartis. It also made forays into Oriya, Nepali and Gorkhali song markets.

The original entrance to Hindustan Records

But the mainstay of Hindusthan Records remained Bengali songs and artistes like Debabrata Biswas, Subinoy Roy, Rajeshwari Datta, Shantideb Ghosh, Purna Das Baul and Asoketaru Bandopadhyay remain its bestsellers.

The successor of Hindusthan Musical Products was the Indian Record Manufacturing Company (Inreco) set up in 1977, the third record manufacturing unit in India that was Indian-owned.

Inreco started with a wide range of artistes from Punjabi to Bhojpuri to Marathi, Tamil and Malayalam. Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur, Kumar Gandharva, Ustad Amir Khan and Manna Dey were among the artistes it recorded.

read the whole article here:

A whole lot of reissues have appeared over the years mostly with songs by K.L. Saigal but one collection exists that is giving a first introduction to some of the early artists on this CD.

Uma Devi, Mullick, Pahari Sanyal, Asit Baran

Songs from New Theatres' Era

Hindusthan Record - IP 6008 - P.1994

More info can be found about most of the reissues on their webpages:

For those with access to Spotify™ you can listen online here:

There is NO download link on this page, but the following posts will contain links to some LP's of reissued 78 rpm material that to listen to by some of the artists mentioned in this post.