Raga Dayabati

Raga Dayabati (Track B) is a classical khayal performance recorded by sitarist Ustad Bahadur Khan for his self-titled album. The track appears as the second side of a 12\" vinyl record released in 1976 under the label His Master’s Voice (HMV). The composition adheres to the structure of Raga Dayabati, a lesser-documented raga within the Hindustani classical tradition. The recording captures Khan’s interpretation of the raga through alap, jor, and jhala sections followed by a gat in vilambit (slow) and drut (fast) tempos, accompanied by tabla and tanpura.

The album Ustad Bahadur Khan serves as one of the few commercially available recordings of Khan’s work, documenting his style within the Senia-Maihar gharana. The vinyl format reflects the production standards of Indian classical music releases in the mid-1970s, with HMV acting as the primary distributor for such recordings during the period. The liner notes or original packaging may have included details on the raga’s characteristics or Khan’s approach, but these are not preserved in available documentation.

Bahadur Khan (1931–1989) was a disciple of Ustad Allauddin Khan and contributed to the propagation of the Maihar tradition through performances and limited recordings. Raga Dayabati remains one of his notable recorded works, though the raga itself lacks extensive theoretical or historical documentation in comparison to more mainstream ragas. The 1976 release stands as a representative artifact of Khan’s artistry and the era’s recording practices for North Indian classical instrumental music.