Ustad Mushtaq Ali khan had a illustrious lineage of the Jaipur Senia Gharana , being seventh in succession from the great Masit Sen , the inventor of the Masit Khani baaj of sitar. He excelled both in sitar and surbahar playing , using three mizrabs .

Born in 20th of June 1911 at Varanasy , son of Ustad Ashiq Ali Khan and my Teacher`s Teacher , had his initial training in sitar from his father at the age of six. He joined as a court musician in Jaunpur State in UP but quit early to continue his mission in life. His first major performance was at the Allahabad Music Conference in 1934 , after that invitations to perform multiplied and he became famous throughtout the country . He organized conferences where old masters and newcoming artists were introduced to the music savants as well as to the general public. Among the wellknown names , Pandit Ravi Shankar was firstly presented by him to the public in Calcuta.

Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan

The list of his proffesional performances and achievements is endless . Besides the spell-binding music he performed at thousands of locations all over India , he was a creative genius and composed so many Razakhani Gats. He said the compositions were natural and came from the musical logic. One of the principal ideas he drilled into his students was `Yukti` or logic . Compositions flow from the logic of basic musical principles grounded in the fundamentals of the Raga System.

The Allahabad Music Conference of 1931 brought him to limelight and since then there was no looking back for him. The great poet Rabindranath Tagore invited him to join Vishwabharti as a teacher which he could not do because of some personal reasons. For a while he joined Jaunpur state as a court musician.

Ask any of his pupils and they will emphasise the importance of logical continuity as the basis of their performances. No wonder he was called musician`s musician. He has his own inimitable way of interpreting the theory of music and used to emphasise the famous statement of `Uttam Gana , Madhyam Bajana`.

From 1960 onward society passed through a rapid transformation .The advent of electronic media gave access to music to a fast expanding audience. The bulk of expansion in music padered to the masses and while a part of the new audience was satisfied with non-classical forms , there was also a growing audience with sophisticated tastes. Classical music was no longer limited to the rich upper class .