(b Shivpur, Tripura, ?1881; d Maihar, Madhya Pradesh, 6 Sept 1972). Indian instrumentalist (principal instruments Sarod and violin). He was the son of Sadhu Khan, a farmer and an amateur musician who learnt the sitār from the rabāb player Kazim Ali Khan; Allauddin’s brother Aftabuddin played the tablā. His remarkable life story has contributed to his legendary status and is also the subject of some controversy; he is believed by some to have lived to the age of 110, although the conjectural birth date of 1881 is more likely.
He ran away from home as a child in order to pursue a musical career. Having reached Calcutta, he received training in vocal music from Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya, alias Nanu or Nulo Gopal. Following Gopal’s death he switched to instrumental music, learning the violin from the Hindu thinker Swami Vivekanand’s brother Amritlal Dutta, alias Habu Dutta; the clarinet, Western music and staff notation from Lobo Prabhu, band master at Eden Gardens, Calcutta; the mrdanga and the tablā from Nandlal Babu, alias Pandit Nandlal; and other instruments including the śahnāī. He eventually took up the sarod under Ustad Ahmad Ali Khan, who took him to the Rampur court of Nawab Bahadur Hamid Ali Khan, then a great centre for classical music. There he became a disciple of the bīn and rabāb maestro Ustad Wazir Khan, under whom he further developed his mastery of the sarod, and also learnt from other notable musicians.
In 1918 he was recruited to be the guru of Maharaja Brij Narain Singh of Maihar. He remained based in Maihar for the rest of his life, where besides teaching the Maharaja he sponsored and directed the Maihar Band and ultimately became chief court musician. He also made a number of commercial recordings and toured as a concert artist. In 1935 he toured Europe with Uday Shankar’s dance troupe and met Uday’s younger brother Ravi Shankar, who was to become one of his most famous disciples. Other famous pupils include two of his five children, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan (sarod) and Annapurna Devi (sitār and surbahār), as well as the sitār player Nikhil Banerjee, the flautist Pannalal Ghosh and the sarod players Timir Baran and Sharan Rani.
He was one of the most important figures behind the rise in the status and popularity of instrumental music in India over the 20th century, due to a number of significant technical and stylistic innovations such as the development of dhrupad-style instrumental ālāp and the use of a wider range of tāl than had previously been used in instrumental music. Some of his followers name a musical tradition in his honour as ‘Maihar gharānā’ or ‘Allauddin gharānā’. Universally known as Bābā (father/grandfather), he is regarded as a personification of the synthesis of Hindu and Islamic traditions in the subcontinent, being both a devout Muslim and a devotee of the Hindu goddess Sharada Ma. His many honours include the President’s Award (1952), the Padma Bhushan (1958) and the Padma Vibhushan (1971).
L.N. Garg: Hamāre sangīt ratn [Our music jewels] (Hathras, 1957)
R. Shankar: My Music, my Life (New York, 1968)
J. Bhattacharya: Ustad Allauddin Khan and his Music (Ahmedabad, 1975)
A. Khan: Amar katha [My story] (Calcutta, 1980)
S. Mishra: Great Masters of Hindustani Music (New Delhi, 1981)
B.R. Deodhar: Pillars of Hindustani Music (Bombay, 1993)
A. Miner: Sitar and Sarod in the 18th and 19th Centuries (Wilhelmshaven, 1993)
Rāgs Kaushi Bhairav, Hem, perf. A. Khan, HMV ECLP 2757 (1976) [sarod]
Rāgs Lalit, Jila, perf. A. Khan, Megaphone (India) JNLX 1008 (1976) [sarod]
Megaphone (India) JNLX 1003 (c1975) [sarod and violin]
MARTIN CLAYTON