Qureshi Alla Rakha Khan (Dogri: क़ुरैशी अल्ला रखा ख़ान) popularly known as Alla Rakha (29 April 1919 – 3 February 2000) was an Indian tabla player. He was a frequent accompanist of Ravi Shankar.
Alla Rakha was born in Paghwal, Jammu, British India. His mother tongue was Dogri. He became fascinated with the sound and rhythm of the tabla at the age of 12, while staying with his uncle in Gurdaspur. The determined young lad ran away from home, became a disciple of and began studying tabla with Mian Kader Baksh of the Punjab gharana. He studied voice and Raag Vidya under Ashiq Ali Khan of the Patiala gharana. His regimen of practice and dedication were legendary: hours upon hours of hard, disciplined practice, that would later pay off.
He was married to Bavi Begum, and has three sons, Zakir Hussain, Fazal Qureshi and Taufiq Qureshi, a daughter Khurshid Aulia née Qureshi, and nine grandchildren. Alla Rakha had another daughter, Razia, whose death preceded his by less than 24 hours.
Alla Rakha began his career as an accompanist in Lahore and then as an All India Radio staffer in Bombay in 1940, playing the station's first ever tabla solo and elevating the instrument's position in the process. Soon after, he composed music for a couple of Hindi films from 1943-48.
Ravi Shankar (Bengali: রবি শংকর; born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury on 7 April 1920), often referred to with the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the most known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.
Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent his youth touring Europe and India with the dance group of his brother Uday Shankar. He gave up dancing in 1938 to study sitar playing under court musician Allauddin Khan. After finishing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer, creating the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray, and was music director of All India Radio, New Delhi, from 1949 to 1956.
In 1956, he began to tour Europe and America playing Indian classical music and increased its popularity there in the 1960s through teaching, performance, and his association with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison of The Beatles. Shankar engaged Western music by writing concerti for sitar and orchestra and toured the world in the 1970s and 1980s. From 1986 to 1992 he served as a nominated member of the upper chamber of the Parliament of India. Shankar was awarded India's highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna, in 1999, and received three Grammy Awards. He continues to perform in the 2000s, often with his daughter Anoushka.
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE (22 April 1916 – 12 March 1999) was an American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985. He is often considered to be one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century.
Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York City, United States, to Bielorussian Jewish parents from what is now Belarus. His sisters were the concert pianist and human rights worker Hephzibah Menuhin and the pianist, painter, and poet Yaltah Menuhin. Through his father Moshe Menuhin, a former rabbinical student and anti-Zionist writer, Menuhin was descended from a distinguished rabbinical dynasty.
Menuhin began violin instruction at age four under violinist Sigmund Anker; his parents had wanted Louis Persinger to be his teacher, but Persinger refused. Menuhin displayed extraordinary talents at an early age. His first solo violin performance was at the age of seven with the San Francisco Symphony in 1923. Persinger then agreed to take Menuhin as a student. When the Menuhins went to Paris, Persinger suggested Yehudi go to his own teacher, Eugène Ysaÿe. He did have one lesson with Ysaÿe, but did not like his method or the fact that he was very old. Instead, he went to the Romanian composer and violinist George Enescu, after which he made several recordings with his sister Hephzibah. He was also a student of Adolf Busch. In 1929 he played in Berlin, under Bruno Walter's baton, three concerti by Bach, Brahms and Beethoven. In 1932 he recorded Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor for HMV in London, with the composer himself conducting, and between 1934 and 1936 he made the first integral recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin.
Bernard "Buddy" Rich (September 30, 1917 – April 2, 1987) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.
Rich was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish vaudevillians Robert and Bess Rich. His talent for rhythm was first noted by his father, who saw that Buddy could keep a steady beat with spoons at the age of one. He began playing drums in vaudeville when he was 18 months old, billed as "Traps the Drum Wonder." At the peak of Rich's childhood career, he was reportedly the second-highest paid child entertainer in the world (after Jackie Coogan). At 11 he was performing as a bandleader. He received no formal drum instruction, and went so far as to claim that instruction would only degrade his musical talent. He also never admitted to practicing, claiming to play the drums only during performances[citation needed] and was not known to read music. He expressed great admiration for, and was influenced by, the playing of Chick Webb, Gene Krupa, Dave Tough, and Jo Jones, among others.[citation needed].
Shammi Kapoor (Hindi: शम्मी कपूर; born Shamsher Raj Prithviraj Kapoor; 21 October 1931. – 14 August 2011) was an Indian film actor and director. He was a prominent lead actor in Hindi cinema from the late 1950s until the early 1970s and played supportng roles from 1974 to 2011.
Shammi Kapoor is hailed as one of the most entertaining lead actors that Hindi cinema has ever produced and his notable films include Tumsa Nahin Dekha, Dil Deke Dekho, Junglee, Dil Tera Diwana, Professor, China Town, Rajkumar, Kashmir Ki Kali, Janwar, Teesri Manzil, An Evening in Paris, Bramhachari, Andaz and Vidhaata. He received the Filmfare Best Actor Award in 1968 for his performance in Brahmachari and Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for Vidhaata in 1982.
He was given the name Shamsher Raj Kapoor at his birth in Mumbai to film and theatre actor Prithviraj Kapoor and Ramsharni Kapoor née Mehra. Shammi was the second of the three sons born to Prithviraj (the other two being Raj Kapoor and Shashi Kapoor), both successful Bollywood actors. Though born in Mumbai, he spent a major portion of his childhood in Kolkata, where his father was involved with New Theatres Studios, acting in films. It was in Kolkata that he did his Montessory and Kindergarten. After coming back to Mumbai, he first went to St. Joseph's Convent (Wadala) and then, to Don Bosco School. He finished his matric schooling from New Era School at Hughes Road.
The truth is shrouded in the past
Your daily desert makes your passion burn
Blackness as melting tar is staring right to your face
Doomed men ready for last goals
Doomed men ready for the death
Fire walks on the world
Beast Tamer
Fear grows at the foot of truth
Join the flash of victory
Beast Tamer
Fire walks on the world
Forbidden game and broken seal
Blackness as melting tar is staring right to your face
No return
Who among you is selected to ride the beast?
Who counts the cross signs of crucial vote?
Who defaces the truth?
Who joins the spirits?
demonized mind glints thru sightless eyes...
lost the clue of exultation in hollow's dreary maze
needs must be quit, this realm of all despair...
anguish in vain, in vain, outcasts of heaven
creatures insane, insane
praise unholy seven!
beware of Cerberus!
bloody slaver drips down his triple chin
craving for the stench of sin
in hollow's dreary maze
call back the shades of the dead clay
fetch Medusa!
anguish in vain, in vain, outcasts of heaven
creatures insane, insane
praise unholy seven!
welcome to the final show
thru me...
the gates of Dis opened
the tombs burning
the sinners wailing
fetch Medusa!
thru me...
demonized mind glints thru sightless eyes
reveals the face of avarice
welcome to the final show
Caina's CurseEmpress of many tongues
The black winds of my passion grab at you
Black winds
Lead me
Release me
Black winds
The black winds of my passion grab at you
Desire wafts, impelled by love
Lead me to your hidden fires
Black winds of my passion grab at you
Empress
We license lust by law
Black winds
Lead me
Release me
when bodies fall and fall down dead
Choronzon`s night is rising
and throws black seeds into your staring face
fevered eyes glare to jet black crows spidering
Choronzon, your hellish legions whisper
betrayal is the oxygen of his deathway
he stabs you in the back
he pisses his kisses into the air
his sperm blinds your eyes
his evil swims into your head
his slickeyes poisen your brain
Choronzon, your hellish legions whisper
Choronzon, god of laughter, set to flight my enemies
betrayal is the oxygen of his deathway
he stabs you in the back
he pisses his kisses into the air
his sperm blinds your eyes
somewhere in the kingdom of heretics, animated by magnetic stream
poisoned needles stab into the hidden lifeline to heart
yearning hearts, lashed for calming
in request the masters will
walking minds armed for flushing
touch the nerves under skin
evoke a spiral of sensation
exploded bodies, ecstatic pain
in raging fires of desire, echoes of eternity
Panic flight to agony, prodigies of black
Purple screams enfold the night
Nerves stuffed by strange impulses
But still hungry, but still hungry
Blasted brains thirst after unholy experience
How to satisfy unless thru pain...
All your sorrows enfold your visions
Prodigies of black, panic flight to agony
Prodigies of black, purple screams enfold the night
Nerves stuffed by strange impulses
But still hungry, but still hungry
Blasted brains thirst after unholy experience
How to satisfy unless thru pain...
bizarre world
look in your mind's eye
I'm your hope and I'm your curse
look in your mind's eye
what do you see in your mind's eye?
how to square the circle?
2 turns to 3, the 3 rises to the 4
the spell circle is done, the law of averages comes true
look in your mind's eye
godfather is watching you: trust in lies
what do you see in your mind's eye?
trust, guilt? how to square the circle?
godfather is watching you, 2 turns to 3, guilt!
open the view of yet another moat:
the tale from sowers of scandal, the tale from sowers of schism
is the tale from wounds and blood
thru black air comes along a smooth tongued talker
with his tongue hacked from his throat
there's a headless trunk that keeps running
by the hair it swings the severed head
sower of scandal, doomed to bear his brain cleft from the trunk
sowers of schism ripped open from chin to breast
the measure of the offence is measured to the offender
sowers of schism ripped open from chin to breast
the measure of the offence is measured to the offender
sowers of schism ripped open from chin to breast
breast split open, face split open!
see how I rend myself!
Drops of anguish fall fast and red
No dreams of bliss, no dreams of promise
Drops of anguish fall fast and red
Almighty din!
Drops of anguish!
Machinery of the devil
No dreams of bliss, no dreams of promise
Machinery of the devil
Drops of anguish fall fast and red
No dreams of bliss, no dreams of promise
Perdition is your way
Purple darkness of the air to visit us
Praise the names of blasphemy
Praise the names of blasphemy
Praise the mother of harlots
Drink her wine of fornication
Perdition is your way
Blasphemy...
Two thousand years: enough, enough!
Enough of sanctimonious morality!
Essence awake!
Unnamed forms preach the bible of insanity:
Corruption is the true face of dignity!
Strength in my purpose!
The uprights lock up themselves in hot burning dungeon
Their martyrdom works no marvel no more
Enough of sanctimonious morality!
Corruption is the true face of dignity!
Their martyrdom works no marvel no more
There are snipers who take the sanction: gore, gore, gore!
Somewhere in VietNam a 19-year-old soldier walked out of a barroom
And he said I must be seeing things that bourbon hit me like a baseball bat
In Bellfast Ireland a little lady dropped her shovel in her garden
She raced across the yard and ask her neighbor Mrs Clancy what was that
In Memphis Tennessee a teacher raised the window closest the river
And the children in her classroom swore they'd heard a choir singing down the street
In Washington DC a private secretary's lips began to quiver
And the President just put aside his papers and rose quickly to his feet
I lay in a cheap motel in the arms of someone else's woman
When a loud explosion rocked the room and turned the morning into night
I jumped out of bed and ran into the street with hardly any clothes on
As the sky lit up my heart stood still and I could feel my face was turnin' white
All at once the clouds rolled back and there stood Jesus Christ in all his glory
And I realized the saddest eyes I'd ever seen were lookin' straight at me
I guess I was awakened by the penetrating sounds of my own screamin'
And it didn't take me long to stumble out of bed and fall down on my knees
As tears rolled down my face I cried dear God I'm thankful I was only dreamin'
invocation, revelation, annunciation
without destiny`s blessing,
in the dense haze of agony,
celebrate the unnamed deity
no resurrection, no contrition,
eclipse of delusion in the storm of sins
peal of thunder, fierce yells,
hear the doom eternally redounding
when unknown shades give you a turn,
why kick against the pricks of that great will?
what boots it at the facts to spurn?
your howling increases your sorrows still
why, why this dull delay?
why bring so white a liver to the deed?
recall the Divine Providence
recite the Great Sentence
recoil from the Great Enemy
elysium filled with ill woes
and torments desolate: you`ll drown in agony
no resurrection, no contrition,
eclipse of delusion in the storm of sins
misery of fiery passions,
ecstasy of burning clarity
peal of thunder, fierce yells,
hear the doom eternally redounding
recall the Divine Providence
recite the Great Sentence
recoil from the Great Enemy
why kick against the pricks of that great will?
what boots it at the fates to spurn?
your howling increases your sorrows still
peal of thunder, fierce yells,