Raga Darbari Kanada: Dhamar

Ragas Darbari Kanada & Adana is a vinyl album released in 1988 under the His Master’s Voice label. The recording features the Dagar brothers, Nasir Moinuddin Dagar and Nasir Aminuddin Dagar, performing in the dhrupad tradition of Hindustani classical music. The album includes two primary raga presentations, with the B-side opening track titled Raga Darbari Kanada: Dhamar.

The Dagar brothers belonged to the 19th generation of the Dagar gharana, a lineage renowned for its adherence to the dhrupad style. Their rendition of Darbari Kanada employs the dhamar tala, a rhythmic cycle of 14 beats traditionally associated with devotional and seasonal themes. The performance emphasizes the raga’s characteristic komal gandhar (flattened third) and shuddha nishad (pure seventh), aligned with the Kafi thaat framework. The recording captures the brothers’ layered vocal technique, including sustained alap and intricate jod-jhala passages.

The album’s production reflects the technical standards of late 1980s analog recording, with His Master’s Voice overseeing the mastering and distribution. The vinyl format preserves the dynamic range of the tanpura drone and the subtle microtonal inflections central to dhrupad performance. No additional session musicians or instrumental accompaniments are credited beyond the vocalists. The release date of 1988 places the album within a period of renewed commercial interest in classical Indian music, though specific sales figures or reissue details remain undocumented.

Beyond the Dhamar in Darbari Kanada, the album’s second side includes a rendition of Raga Adana, though track-specific metadata for that performance is not provided in the available context. The Dagar brothers’ collaboration on this release stands as a representative example of their late-career work, following their extensive contributions to dhrupad revivalism in the 20th century.