About Duets
Duets is a collaborative studio album featuring Indian classical musicians Ustad Bismillah Khan on shehnai and violinist V. G. Jog. The record pairs two leading exponents of Hindustani classical music in a jugalbandi format, blending the tonal textures of the shehnai and violin. His Master’s Voice released the album in 1965 as a 12\" vinyl LP under catalog number EALP 1307. The release date aligns with the label’s 1965 production schedule, though the exact month remains undocumented.
The album contains two extended tracks. The first composition explores Raga Jai Jaiwanti, a melodic framework associated with late evening performances and characterized by its use of komal re (flattened second) and komal dha (flattened sixth) in descent. The second track presents Raga Bahar, a spring-season raga traditionally performed in the early hours of Holi, followed by a dhun (light classical piece) set to Mishra Khamaj, a thaat-based raga that incorporates shuddha ni (natural seventh) and teevra ma (sharp fourth). Both performances adhere to the alap-jor-jhala structure in the vilambit (slow) and drut (fast) sections, with Jog and Khan alternating improvisational passages.
His Master’s Voice produced the recording in Mumbai, with audio engineering handled by the label’s in-house team. The sleeve design features a monochrome portrait of the artists in performance attire, accompanied by liner notes in English and Hindi. The notes credit the tanpura accompaniment to an unnamed artist and the tabla support to a session percussionist, though specific names are not listed in available documentation. The album’s press run and commercial reception figures remain unverified in public archives.
Bismillah Khan and V. G. Jog had previously collaborated in live concerts, but Duets marks their first documented studio recording together. The release precedes Jog’s later work with sitarist Vilayat Khan and follows Bismillah Khan’s solo recordings for HMV in the early 1960s. No reissues or digital remasters of the original vinyl have been officially confirmed by the label or the artists’ estates as of the latest accessible records.