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     Volume 4 Issue 71 | November 18, 2005 |


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Music

Bringing Back the
Golden Oldies

Elita Karim

IT is every musician's dream to explore the many dimensions in simple melody. Musicians adore adulation and measure their success through the audience's response to the harmony created. Today of course, it takes much more than mere God-gifted talent to become a prominent musician and enter the world of glamour, flashing cameras and the ever-ringing phone calls. Now, there is an entity called a recording label or a music company that is treated with much reverence by musicians. Playing a huge role in a musician's career, a record deal can be defined as an 80 100 page, single-spaced recording contract, legally binding agreement between individuals who make up a band and a corporation.

A recording label, as per the contract, pays for the musician's studio shifts, promotes the musician by organising concerts, arranging for youngster's hangout-areas like snooker clubs and fast food eateries to play the music and using the print and electronic media to showcase the record itself.

Just a few months ago, a new music company just added its name to the already existing titles of G-series, Ektaar, Soundtek, Sangeeta and many more in the country. Show Time Music & Play, owned by Kaiser Mannan and Shakur Latif, located in Banani aims to promote new musicians in the country. "When we say that there are hundreds of musicians out there in the country," says Shakur Latif, "we are actually making an understatement."

According to Latif, the streets of Dhaka City today are teeming with young and fresh talents, starting from aspiring vocalists, guitarists, percussionists, bassists, flutists to sound engineers and composers. "Through this establishment of ours, we really want to bring these youngsters into the limelight and help them out with their expressions," adds Latif.

Coming up as an event management company right in the beginning, Kaiser Mannan founded Show Time Music & Play back in 1996 in USA. "We were involved in organising deshi shows and musical evenings for the Bangalis who used to live in there," says Mannan. "After I moved back to Dhaka back in 2001, the first thing that I did was have Show Time Music & Play registered here as a music company. However, the company was inactive all this time until a couple of months ago when we started to work on an album."

Naaz is a compilation of golden Bangla oldies, rearranged and sung by new and up coming singers. Rearranged by the all time famous Bappa Mazumder, the newly arranged numbers clearly have Bappa's touch, making them all the more enticing.

Even though the album has been completed, Mannan and Latif do not intend to release it anytime soon. "We are new in this business and are still getting used to the 'do's' and the 'don'ts'" Latif confesses. "It will surely take the CD outlets and other music companies some time to accept us and grow confidence in our work. So we have planned out a total of seven albums which we plan to bring out at the end of this year or early next year."

"Quality is the key word here," says Mannan. "This is a big budget project and we are planning everything slowly and in an efficient manner so that we can get our audience to trust us and the music that we are going to make."

Naaz features three fresh talents, namely Mohima Hossain, Monir Chowdhury and Tanzina Amin. Each of them has sung the old numbers, which will definitely let the listeners relive the golden era of the past. Songs like Katha kichu kichu, Nijhum o shandhya, Ami dur hotey, Jetha Ram dhanu, Amar shopnay dekha, Shath bhai champa, Jaray ure jaray pakhi and Olir o katha shunay have been revived in a new package, keeping, the flavour authentic and intact.

The company also plans to start working on music videos for these songs. "We are always looking for shooting spots and have mentally marked many in and outside the country," smiles Latif. "We'll start working on Jaray ure jaray pakhi first, which will depict an old lady recalling the younger part of her life. She will finally let go of her soul and breathe her last, symbolised by a flock of birds," adds Latif, who is also planning to direct the video.

The company is hunting for new and fresh ideas and thoughts. "We are very open to anyone who wants to come and let us have a peek at his/her demo tape or any other kind of piece of creative work," adds Mannan. "We are quite ambitious and very positive about the production that we are taking up, not to mention the quality that will add to all the harmony around."

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