The Immortal Geeta Dutt - Page 3

Golden Collection, Geeta Dutt Essential

Album review from The Hindu

Saregama

A MUSIC critic once characterised Geeta Dutt's voice as "thandi hawa and kali ghata rolled into one". Few could breeze through a song and fill it with life and emotion the way she did. Given the effortless seductive allure of her voice, it is hard to believe that she started out as a singer of bhajans and weepy numbers. It was with the 1951 release, Baazi (which had music by S.D. Burman), that composers discovered how Geeta could go WSestern with ease. This possibility of her voice was used to the hilt by O.P. Nayyar and that was how she managed to survive the Lata Mangeshkar onslaught, though in second place, for a good decade. She remained the unquestionable choice for all "club numbers" through most part of the '50s.

This album skips the very early Geeta phase — so you don't hear "Mera Sundar Sapana Beet Gaya" from Do Bhai (1947) — and opens with that famous Baazi number, "Tadbeer Se Bigdi Hui". So you find all the best-known songs in the quintessential Geeta moods,

teasing/naughty/gay... "Babuji Dheere Chalna", "Thandi Hawa Kali Ghata", "Jata Kahan Hain Diwane", "Mera Naam Chin Chin Chu", "O Babu O Lala", and "Ae Dil Mujhe Bata De" — all composed by O.P. Nayyar, but for the last two.

S.D. Burman also exploited the Bengali lilt in Geeta's voice for some great results such as "Aaj Sanam Mohe Ang Laga Lo". Just as she could sound lovelorn without going overboard in "Jane Kya Tune Kahi", she could also sound absolutely grovelling in "Na Jao Saiyan". The latter is perfect in the film, but sounds overdone without the begging, pleading Meena Kumari to lip sync to the voice!

These songs provide a foil to all her lively numbers. But one does miss her great duets, such as "Jane Kahan Mera Jigar Gayan Ji" and "Acchaji Main Hari Chalo".

It's a tragedy that a singer with such immense talent let the tragedies in her personal life completely overtake her singing career.

When S.D. Burman and O.P. Nayyar wanted to bring her back to playback singing after a falling out with Lata, they found Geeta had grown far too indisciplined to cope. Asha eventually came to take what was once Geeta's place. But one is told that Geeta did try to resurrect her career a couple of years before her death (in 1972). She sang in a Hrishikesh Mukherjee film in 1971. This album, which sticks to the best-known, does not include anything from the last phase of her life.

BAGESHREE S

You can buy the album @
Golden Collection: Geeta Dutt - Essential

Something about the songs of Geeta Dutt.....

Anol Da, you did set my Sunday Morning wake up turn on my old laptop the first thing pop up Message open it see a message on Geeta Dutt Music what can I say wake the whole house. A little memory of mine that I grew up with.

Geeta Dutt died in 1972. She was just 42 at that time. I was young then. But I knew songs like 'Jaaney kya tuney kahi' from Guru Dutt's Pyaasa thanks to the open air cinema. Friday used to be the day for Hindi films. A weekly event I and my father looked forward to with great excitement in those pre-television days. Even though I couldn't understand the words of Geeta's songs their words and music hypnotized me. Add to that the stunning black and white scenes from Guru Dutt's films. Last winter I happened to see a VCD of Geeta's songs. Titled Shradhanjali it contains ten of her most well known songs. These are (1) Babuji Dhire Chalna from Aar Paar (2) Jaaney Kahaan Mera... from Mr. & Mrs. 55 (3) Aankhon hi Aankhon mein from C.I.D (4) Thandi Hawa Kali Ghata from Mr. & Mrs. 55 (5) Yeh Lo Main Hari Piya from Aar Paar (6) Waqt ne Kiya Kya... from Kagaz Ke Phool (7) Jaaney Kya Tuney Kahi from Pyaasa (8) Na Jao Saiya Churake Baiya from Sahib Biwi Aur Gulam (9) Hum Aapki Aankhon Mein from Pyaasa and (10) Mohabbat Karlo from Aar Paar. I bought it with a lot of happiness and joy. I have just finished listning these ten songs once and as they are now play in the background and I thought to share the moment with you all. What a beautiful experience. Recommended for all you music lover out there.

Originally posted by: Qwest

Anol Da, you did set my Sunday Morning wake up turn on my old laptop the first thing pop up Message open it see a message on Geeta Dutt Music what can I say wake the whole house. A little memory of mine that I grew up with.

Qwest Bhai all credits goes to Barnalidi - I just knew - you will like this! 😊

The letters confirm that Guru Dutt was not acting when portraying suffering on screen.

Yours Guru Dutt, Intimate Letters of a Great Indian Filmmaker; Nasreen Munni Kabir; Roli Books; 2006; Price not stated YOURS GURU DUTT is a brief anthology of 37 letters that Guru Dutt had written to his wife, Geeta Dutt and their sons, Tarun and Arun, between 1951 and 1962. Even though Guru Dutt died in 1964, two years after the last published letter in the book, this collection gives you some idea of his state of mind. Dutt's films we know and love. What is unsettling is the eerie connection between the way he writes to his wife and the emotions that are reflected in some of his films. As we know, Dutt died of an overdose of sleeping pills (probably combined with alcohol) on October 10, 1964, at the age of 39. At the time of his death he had separated from his wife and was living alone in an apartment on Peddar Road, Bombay. His difficult marriage and his equally complex, and ultimately broken, relationship with actress Waheeda Rahman was said to have led to this tragedy. But is that true? Beautifully presented If you read the letters carefully and objectively, you can clearly see that Guru Dutt had started suffering from depression way back in 1951, even before he married playback singer Geeta Dutt (nee, Roy). The letters are written in Hindi and English and are beautifully presented in this book by Nasreen Munni Kabir. A young man of 26 writes to a young woman who has agreed to marry him in principle but cannot do so at that exact moment (they eventually married in 1953). Yet he seems to be depressed about the delay and talks about how she is making him unhappy. Then, in 1952, Guru Dutt indicates that he is aware of his mood fluctuations though he doesn't understand its causes. Is she the cause of his unhappiness? Clearly not. This is a man with clinical depression who has some idea of what is happening to him but sees it as simply being 'moody'. Guru Dutt's friend and collaborator, the great Urdu poet and lyric writer of "Pyaasa", Sahir Ludhianvi, intuitively understood the artiste's condition and portrayed it in a couplet that translated as: "We are flowers, we brought happiness to others/ For ourselves, only the dark stain of sorrow." Guru Dutt, as Nasreen Munni Kabir points out in her Introduction, had the shortest career of any outstanding film maker in India, making films for just 13 years between 1951 and 1964, and yet made a hauntingly beautiful film in every genre of Hindi cinema: the crime thriller ("C.I.D."), the costume drama ("Baaz"), the Muslim social ("Chaudhvin ka Chand"), comedy ("Aar Paar", "Mr &Mrs 55"), social melodrama ("Pyaasa") and the period film ("Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam"). His creative inspiration in writing scripts, his versatility as an actor, his inventiveness in picturising songs, and his direction of camera are still unparalleled in Hindi cinema. Yet he was so terribly unhappy. Is that necessarily the human condition of a truthful artist? Solcae in cinema Probably not. But what do you say about a man in his twenties who writes to his beloved in these words: "I sometimes wish I was not born, or sometimes I wish I was dead, or sometimes I wish I am not that what I am and didn't know you. Like a madman I roam about trying to find solace, which I don't get anywhere." The solace he speaks about looking for, he found in cinema. In his hands the medium turned to poetry, consistently and eloquently in every film he made. As audiences we are grateful for it. But reflect, for a moment, on what the effect of these letters could be on young playback singer, Geeta Roy? Unfortunately, we have no record of the letters she wrote to him. Guru Dutt evidently didn't keep them. But we do know that just eight years after her husband's death, this talented artist who sang some of the songs that Guru Dutt is best known for picturising, died of cirrhosis of the liver. She was 42. These letters published in the elegantly produced book, Yours Guru Dutt, are a vital addition to biographical material on Guru Dutt. They function as sub-text to his films.

They confirm that Guru Dutt was not acting when portraying suffering on screen in "Pyaasa".

Originally posted by: soulsoup

Golden Collection, Geeta Dutt Essential

Album review from The Hindu

This particular album is one of the best collection of songs of Geeta Dutt. All the best melodies are there in the album. After reading the post from the afternoon I am listening to the album. Each and every song is just great.

Originally posted by: Bhaskar.T

This particular album is one of the best collection of songs of Geeta Dutt. All the best melodies are there in the album. After reading the post from the afternoon I am listening to the album. Each and every song is just great.

You know Bhaskar - I have this one - and right now playing it in my iPod 😊

Originally posted by: soulsoup

You know Bhaskar - I have this one - and right now playing it in my iPod 😊

😆

Seems Anol we all are today under Geeta Dutt fever.... I went to Barnalidi's place and heard Geta Dut's Bengali album being played... Then maybe it's worth... I have a huge collection of MP3's of her too. So if any particular song needed just post. I can upload it for you all if it's with me.

Originally posted by: Bhaskar.T

This particular album is one of the best collection of songs of Geeta Dutt. All the best melodies are there in the album. After reading the post from the afternoon I am listening to the album. Each and every song is just great.

You are so right Bhaskar </>

Originally posted by: Bhaskar.T

😆

Seems Anol we all are today under Geeta Dutt fever.... I went to Barnalidi's place and heard Geta Dut's Bengali album being played... Then maybe it's worth... I have a huge collection of MP3's of her too. So if any particular song needed just post. I can upload it for you all if it's with me.

Well Bhaskar - I have almost all Geeta Dutt's songs.
FYI she was my maternal grandma's primary schoolmate at Fareedpur (what a close relation 😆😆😆) But you know everyone feel an urge to be associated somehow with great people - so my mother used to play the LP/ cassettes of Geeta Dutt quite often - I inherited that!

However three films released in 1949. Barsaat, Andaaz and Mahal. All three smashing hits. The music of each film better than the other. In all three films the heroine's songs were sung by a young lady who had also made her debut in playback singing in 1946 but till then had not made any significant headway in her career. The success of these films changed all that. The song 'Aayega aanewala' from Mahal soared to heights of till then unseen popularity. ( It remains an all time favourite even today ) The singer was ... Lata Mangeshkar. Lata went on to become the greatest playback singer the Indian screen has ever seen. Only two singers managed to survive the Lata onslaught in the 1950s. Shamshad Begam and Geeta Roy. Though relegated to the second spot, Geeta managed to hold her own against Lata for more than a decade and she and Lata were the premier two female playback singers of the 1950s. er showing Geeta Roy's popularity

By 1951, Geeta had become a singer well known for bhajans and weepy weepy sad songs. Jogan( 1950 )in fact had 12 solo bhajans sung by her! But 1951 also saw the release of a film, Baazi. Directed by first time director Guru Dutt, the film, a crime thriller influenced by the film noir movement of Hollywood was a trend setter of sorts, leading to a spate of urban crime films that Bollywood churned out in the 1950s. The jazzy musical score revealed a new facet to Geeta's singing. The sex appeal in her voice and the ease with which she went western was marvellous to behold. While every song in the film was a raging hit, one stood out for special appeal. 'Tadbir se bigdi hui taqdeer' a ghazal that was occidentalized into a jazzy seductive song! From then on in the 1950s for a club dance or a seductive song, the first choice was Geeta. The song stood out fo rmore reasons than one. During the recording of the song she met the young director of the film, Guru Dutt. Thus blossomed a romance which culminated in marriage on 26 May,1953. Geeta went on to sing some of her best songs in her husband's films while continuing singing in various outside assignments as well. The couple had two sons Tarun and Arun and a daughter Nina. However by 1957 the marriage had run into rough weather and was on the rocks. Guru Dutt had got involved with his new leading lady Waheeda Rehman. And it was ironic that Geeta the playback singer's voice was used on Waheeda Rehman the actress as she 'sang' sweet nothings to Guru Dutt. The breaking up of her marriage also began having repercussions on her career. To quieten things down Guru Dutt launched a film Gauri( 1957 )with her in the lead. She was to be launched as a singing star and it was to be India's first film in cinemascope but the film was shelved after justa few days shooting. This was the time when one heard complaints from music directors about her not being easily available for either rehearsals or recordings. She neglected her riaz. And to make things worse she began finding solace in drinks. On October 10, 1964 Guru Dutt passed away. Waheeda had gone out of his life. And Geeta and he could never really get back together. It is said his death due to an overdose of sleeping tablets in his drink was an accident but the cause of death remains a mystery. Geeta was a broken woman, shattered by his death. She now had neither her singing or her husband. Lata's younger sister, Asha Bhonsle, had not only taken her place but had gone beyond her. Geeta suffered a nervous breakdown. When she recovered she found herself in a financial mess. She did try to resume singing again, cutting discs at Durga Puja and giving stage shows , even doing a Bengali film, Badhu Bharan ( 1967 ) as heroine! But her health kept failing as she drank herself to a point of no return. She died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1972. But not before she showed she still had it in her were she given a mike to sing. The songs of Basu Bhattacharya'sAnubhav ( 1971 ), 'Meri jaan mujhe jaan na kaho meri jaan', 'Koichupke se aake' and 'Mera dil jo mera hota' represent some of the finest work that Geeta Dutt ever did.
with singer - composer Hemant Kumar The first thing that strikes one when you hear Geeta Dutt sing was that she never sang. She just glided through a tune. Of all her contemporaries her musical training was perhaps the sketchiest but what she lacked in training and technique, she more than made it with her ability to breathe life and emotion into any song she was singing. In the recording room there was no matching Geeta's vivacity, vitality and spontaneity, her sense of rhythm unparalleled. Her capacity to be both sensual yet sensitive gives Geeta Dutt's voice a unique ethereal quality. To quote Raju Bharathan, Music critic in Filmfare February 1-15, 1985 Page 89, " Geeta Dutt was thandi hawa and kaali ghata rolled into one. The moment she came, you got the refreshing feeling of aa hi gayi jhoom ke. There was a rare swing in her voice. She hit you like a thunderclap..........This made Geeta Dutt the one singer that Lata Mangeshkar really feared. In training and technique Lata was way ahead but neither training nor technique was of much use when pitted against Geeta in the recording room........This put Lata on the defensive and I think she avoided singing with Geeta as far as possible. (They have sung few duets) I vaguely remember Lata acknowledging this fact when Geeta died on July 20, 1972." Geeta Dutt scored heavily as a singer particularly when she sang under the baton of two music directors, S.D. Burman and O.P.Nayyar. The S.D. Factor : S.D. Burman was among the earliest to discover the magic in Geeta Dutt's voice. In 1947 with Filmistan's DoBhai. He persuaded the producer to give her a break. The producer being unsure of Geeta made a deal with S.D. Burman. She would record a song but it would be retained only after hearing the result. The song 'Humein chod piyakis desh gaye' was recorded and played back. The rest as they say is history. Even as it lead to Geeta becoming the foremost singer of the industry by 1951 she had found herself in a position where she was regarded good only for bhajans and sad songs. It took S.D.Burman's jazzy and westernized score for Baazi which showcased Geeta's versatility, her breezy voice. S.D. Burman effectively used the Bengali lilt in her voice memorably in films like Devdas and Pyaasa. Thesong'Aaj sajan mohe ang lagalo' from the latter is one of the finest examples of the Bengali kirtan put over on the Hindi screen. No female singer has better articulated the spirit of Burmanda's music in its early years. In fact in 1957, when he fell out with Lata, Burmanda was looking to make Geeta his main singer rather than the upcoming Asha Bhonsle. After all by then Geeta was a mature singer while Asha was still raw. But due to her troubled marriage Geeta was not free to practice in the style required by S.D.Burman who was a hard taskmaster in matter of rehearsals. He joined O.P. Nayyar in shaping Asha rather than wait for Geeta. Some memorable songs sung by Geeta under S.D. Burman's baton are: 'Mera sundar sapna beet gaya' (Do Bhai - 1947 )
'Woh sapnewaali raat' (Pyaar - 1950 )
'Tadbir se bigdi hui taqdeer' (Baazi - 1951 )
'Aan milo aan milo' (Devdas - 1955 ) with Manna Dey
'Aaj sajan mohe ang lagalo' (Pyaasa - 1957 )
'Hawa dhire aana' (Sujata - 1959 )
'Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam ' (Kaagaz ke Phool - 1959 ) Geeta sang 72 songs for Dada Burman of which 43 were solos. The last song she recorded for him was from the film Ziddi(1964),'Main tere pyaar mein kya kya na bana dilbar Geeta suited O.P. Nayyar's ebullient themes to a T. He developed the side of Geeta which had emerged with Baazi. Under his freewheeling baton Geeta developed into a really hep singer who could belt out any number - soft, sultry, happy, snappy, romantic, teasing or tragic. It was Geeta Dutt's rare gift that she could effervescently sing for both the doll and the moll. And it was O.P. who got Geeta to stop being overtly emotional in sad songs. O.P.'s comments on Geeta : " ..........Who will deny there is a unique quality to her singing. Give her a blatantly westernized tune this momentand a complex classical composition the next, and she will do equal justice to both with an ease of expression which a singer can only be born with. She is particularly good for songs accompanying boisterous jamborees. With that tantalizing lilt and fascinating curves she puts into her singing,she is the ideal choice if it is seductive allure you want in a song........Geeta Dutt is an asset to any music director. " Some immortal gems sung by Geeta Dutt underO.P. Nayyar's baton : 'Zara saamne aa'( Baaz - 1953 )
'Babuji dhire chalna' (Aar Paar - 1954 )
'Thandi hawa kali ghata' (Mr. & Mrs 55 - 1955 )
'Jab badal lehraya' (Chchoomantar - 1956 )
'Mere zindagi ke humsafar' (Shrimati 420 - 1956 )
'Chor, lutere, daku'( Ustad - 1957 )
'Mera naan chin chin choo' (Howrah Bridge - 1958 )
'Kaisa jadoo balam tune dara' (12o'clock - 1958 )

This is not to say that Geeta was any less effective with other music directors. The songs she has sung for Hemant Kumar in Anandmath ( 1952 ), Bahu ( 1954 ),Ek Jhalak ( 1957 ), Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam ( 1962 ) bear testimony to this. It's just that for the sheer volume and the scaleof popularity that the songs of S.D. Burman and O.P. Nayyar reached make them special in Geeta's oeuvre.