Ustad Moinuddin Khan (not to be confused with Ustad Moinuddin Khan of Hyderabad) is the son of Ustad Mehboob Khan—who appears to have been an unacknowledged teacher of Pandit Ram Narayan. Moinuddin Khan also learned from his grandfather (nana) Ustad Khwaja Bakhsh. Moinuddin Khan was employed at the Jaipur Kathak Kendra and as a staff artist of All India Radio Jaipur.
I worked with Moinuddin Khan and his family in March 1997. The pleasure of hearing his children sing was one of my first inspirations for the Growing into Music project. Talking with his mother was also a great inspiration.
The first group of videos is from a visit 30 March, 1997. The first thing he played was an unaccompanied demonstration of rag Nat Bhairav. It includes an interesting sequence of tans:
This was followed by tuning and talking:
next I listened to Moinuddin Khan playing rag Patdeep accompanied by his son on tabla:
The next clip (concluding our meeting on March 30th) begins with a short continuation of Patdeep, followed by a Piloo thumri , a sweete dadra and Mand (added 2024).
Then a few pieces from the next day, March 31, 1997. Actually there might be some garbar in the labelling and editing of the original tapes, and all these could be from either March 30th or March 31st!
First a complete rendition of Mand including that in the previous video followed by some discussion in which I comment on some repair work that Moinuddin Khan's sarangi needs.:
A change of dress for the next video indicates to me that this was actually March 31st and everything before this was March 30th!
First we have an interview discussing his childhood training and practice.
Then he boys of the house, Moinuddin's son and nephew, sing. First the older boy, Moinuddin Khan's nephew, sings a Kafi hori, accompanying himself on harmonium, then the younger boy, who is now well-known as the sarangi player Sabir Khan of Jaipur, sings a Piloo dadra, followed by Mand. Moinuddin Khan's takes great pleasure in the boys' musiucal utterences.
Then he older boy sings some light piece, probably a film song, followed by a stab (nearly fatal) at Bhairav:
Watching my video of themselves on TV a few days later:
On April 1, 1997 I interviewed Moinuddin Khan's elderly mother, the widow of Ustad Mehboob Khan. She told me that their family, originally from Sikar, had moved to Udaipur and stayer there for six or seven years before settling in Jaipur. Although she came from a sarangi family and her grandfather had played sarangi, her father had worked the firelds. She also told me, in no uncertain terms, that the great virtuoso Pandit Ram Narayan, at the age of ten, had been brought by his father to learn sarangi from Mehboob Khan with whom he stayed for five or six years. It is upsetting to the family that he does not acknowledge his first guru, but apparently he did acknowledge this on the liner notes of one of his early LPs—they told me the LP on which Panditji played rag Saraswati.
