Jaipur-Atrauli Gharana (Khayal)

The Jaipur-Atrauli gharana, often called the Jaipur gharana, is a school of Hindustani khayal singing formed in the late 19th century around Alladiya Khan (1855-1946). It is known for compound and rare ragas, a very slow tempo, curving phrases and rhythm played at quarters and eighths of a beat.

Alladiya Khan (1855-1946) founded the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana; Vamanrao Deshpande and Aneesh Pradhan both name him its founder. Alladiya Khan himself said the gayaki had been taught in his family for generations, through his uncle Jehangir Khan. NCERT's Class 11 music textbook instead names Bhupat Khan 'Manrang', son of Sadarang, as founder, with Alladiya Khan's line a later branch.

The line runs through the women singers who followed Alladiya Khan. Kishori Amonkar (died 2017), daughter and disciple of Mogubai Kurdikar, belonged to the gharana and later chose not to keep strictly to its style. In 1973 Vamanrao Deshpande named Mogubai Kurdikar and Vamanrao Sadolikar among the few teachers still passing the line on.

Jaipur-Atrauli khayal is slow and curving, with rhythm at fractions of the beat, while Agra khayal often opens with dhrupad's nom-tom alap and divides the words across the beat. The two met in Vilayat Hussain Khan of Agra, who took ragas from Alladiya Khan and kept the Agra way of singing them.

Atrauli is a town near Aligarh, in present-day Uttar Pradesh, where Alladiya Khan's family came from. Deshpande writes that Alladiya Khan, too modest to name the gharana after himself, named it after the place he belonged to, near Jaipur. Other accounts tie the name to his acclaim at the Jaipur court or to the family's patronage there. The similar name Agra-Atrauli belongs to the separate Agra gharana.

Jod ragas are compound ragas, which join two ragas in one performance, and they are a specialty of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana. Basanti Kedar and Nat Kamod are examples. Susheela Misra notes Kesarbai Kerkar's preference for unusual ragas and raga combinations, and her recordings include Nat Kamod and Lalita Gauri.

The gharana moved with Alladiya Khan. He became court singer to Shahu Maharaj of Kolhapur, where his family joined him in 1900, and after the ruler's death in 1922 he moved to Bombay. He spent his last 25 years there, so most of his disciples came from Maharashtra and neighbouring regions.

'Taanbaaz' was a critic's label: Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, as B. R. Deodhar reports him, used it for Alladiya Khan's gayaki. Vamanrao Deshpande, who trained in the gharana, puts its weight elsewhere. He describes note shaped by rhythm at an extremely slow tempo, with gamak taans as one element beside linked phrases and fractional layakari.