The exploits of clarinettist Master Sohni Khan

The name of Master Sohni Khan (1902-1976) is generally associated with a local brass band he established in Lahore in 1939 and managed it till his death on September 13, 1976. The brass band he established remained in much demand, both before August 14, 1947 and after independence.
So high was its popularity that it became a prestige symbol for many and consequently an ineluctable component of the festivities organised by the rich and the poor to celebrate the wedding festivities of their scions.
This piece is, however, written to highlight the exploits of the late clarinettist Master Sohni Khan in the domain of classical music, which took his name and fame to the length and breadth of British India: from Lahore to Delhi, Benaras, Lucknow, Bombay, Poona and Calcutta This scribe knew Master Sohni Khan as a next door neighbour of the debonair musician, who was so well-dressed, polite and charming artiste that he would win the heart of his visitors to his baithak during the first social encounter. With his good looks and affable manners, he impressed all those who met him or listened to his instrumental classical music.
To some of his friends, he was a lady-killer, who would charm many women in the world of entertainment. His son, Nazir Husain, who now manages the Sohni Brass Band during a recent conversation bemoaned that the melodic prowess of his father late Master Sohni Khan has not yet been adequately projected, which in his opinion, was an injustice to his creative talent.
During a four-hour long session, he reminisced about the musical exploits of the late maestro. "My father", he claimed, "had ungrudgingly been acknowledged by connoisseurs and music buffs as one of the pioneering musicians, who used clarinet to play classical ragas and also exploited the potential of this Western instrument to its maximum extent for delineating the thematic thrust of classical ragas"
Born in 1902 in Lahore as Ghulam Mohyuddin in a family, which, according to his son, had no interest in practical music, the late clarinettist rose to such great heights in popularity that many music buffs thought he hailed from a family of professional musicians.
But his son, Nazeer Sohni, asserted that only his father's maternal grandfather had a shop where he sold Western band instruments "The sight of bright and well-polished Western musical devices always fascinated my father. He dreamed of playing one of these instruments some day. He first tried his hand at Tamboor, an instrument used as a rhythmic accompaniment".
"His first ustad (mentor')", Nazeer went on to claim, was Allah Ditta Naqarchi, who taught young Sohni Khan the art of rhythm-keeping in such a manner that the late Masterji acquired the skill for manipulating the polyrhythmic intricacies and delicate shadings of sub-continental rhythms.
He used different taals (time measures) of our system of music with much confidence, ease and agility.
His grooming in comprehending and using different patterns of rhythm equipped Sohni Khan to demonstrate his musical prowess later in life with much confidence and dexterity.
"The second ustad of my late father was his cousin Muhammad Din Manna (not to be confused with Muhammad Din of Babu Band of Lahore), who taught him the art of cornet playing, and also familiarised him with Western band music. Ustad Manna helped my father in learning, and playing 100 marching tunes, which were and still are incumbent on a member of a band to learn. But my father's mind was set at clarinet, which he wanted to use to quench his thirst for classical music.
On his own, he practised on this key instrument, and within an incredibly short period of time, acquired enough proficiency in its use." Clarinet, a member of Western woodwind instrument, has a single reed, a small elastic piece of cane, which is fastened against its chisel-shaped mouthpiece. It produces a beautiful tone, like a soprano voice, clear and powerful in the high register, relaxed in the middle, cold and almost spectral in the low.
The full and varied tone produced by it gives the clarinet a leading place in orchestras as well as brass bands. After its introduction in our musical ethos during the British rule, this instrument was effectively integrated with our system of music. Not only is it used in film orchestras, but is also employed as an instrument for solo recital of classical asthai-antaras (compositions) and for the demonstration of an artiste's melodic prowess.
The late Master Sohni Khan made his debut as an instrumental accompanist in the small orchestra of HMV Gramophone Recording Company in the early 1920s. He was asked by his employers to provide accompaniment to singers from all areas of the continent commissioned to record songs in HMV studios.
They included practitioners of all modes of melodic expressions, including folk, ghazal, classical and semi classical. The experience gained by Sohni Khan during his service tenure with HMV enabled him to absorb influences of various regional melodic cultures. Though based in Lahore he was called by his employers to visit Delhi, Lucknow, Bombay and Calcutta to assist the company in recording songs of vocalists from different regions of British India. Thus he learnt the art of jugalbandi (musical dialogue) which he practised with so many seasoned musicians and vocalists.
After he had become sufficiently proficient in clarinet playing, and after he had made several demonstrations of his prowess before conglomerations of master musicians in Delhi and elsewhere, Sohni Khan became a formal pupil of classical vocalist Ustad Tawwakal Husain Khan, his late third teacher. Ustad Tawwakal Husain Khan unfolded on the young clarninitest the mysteries of classical music.
Those connoisseurs, who have heard the late Sohni Khan play a raga on his clarinet, still vividly see through the eyes sof their minds the agility with which he delineated a classical composition and how he manipulated angular beats.
Recorded music of the late Master Sohni Khan is available at the National Sound Library in Islamabad, which should be broadcast periodically at least, preventing it from catching dust in the national archives.