Jaffar Hussain Randhawa is coming to Europe for the first time at the invitation of Pakistani Grammy winner Arooj Aftab and the Dutch Le Guess Who? festival. Guldasta, meaning bouquet, is the debut solo release of Pakistan’s senior most Clarinetist, Ustad Jaffar Hussain Randhawa. It was recorded live on the rooftop of his house in Shahdara, on a foggy winter afternoon, as he sat with his favorite accompanists under the Alam.
He titled the album Guldasta because he imagines at as a bouquet of flowers, mixing up various raags and styles, each flower with its own distinct fragrance.
Jaffar Hussain is Pakistan’s most senior and accomplished Clarinet maestro. He is amongst a handful of people in all of South Asia, carrying on the now rare tradition of playing Hindustani Classical music on the Clarinet, a western instrument not typically heard in performances of Raags and Thumris. Born into a brass band family, his grandfather founded the Punjab Band in the mid 20th century, and his father continued leading the band, making his name in a time of fierce competition amongst brass bands in Punjab such as the famous Babu Band and the Sohni Band.
He himself learnt from Ustad Sohni Khan and was heavily influenced by the great Ustad Sadiq Ali Mando, one of the most well-known classical Clarinet players in the sub-continent. What sets Jaffar Hussain apart are his masterful performances of classical forms like Raag, Thumri, and Kafi on the Clarinet, on which he manages to reproduce the melodic ornamentations that are central to this music and simultaneously display a creative rigor with his approach to rhythm (laya) and layakaari (rhythmic interplay).
