Umar Khan was a well known sarod player and a great scholar of Hindusthani music. He was born while his father Sakhawat Hussain Khan was appointed court musician in Dhaka. Umar learned music extensivly under his legendary father Sakhawat Hussain Khan and in addition tied the thread of formal discipleship with is father’s Ustad Keramtaullah Khan. During the 1930ies, after his father left for Europe to tour with Madame Menaka Umar Khan lived a couple of years in Mumbai and served as staff artist at All India Radio. It was here that he started learning vocal music from the famous Ustads Rajab Ali Khan and Alladia Khan. After that he moved back to Lucknow and served at the Marris College/Bhatkande College for several years. During the early 1950ies he frequently shuffeled between Lucknow and Calcutta to teach Begum Jabbar -the daughter of the Nawab of Jalpaiguri. After the demise of Waliullah Khan (who was initially employed to teach the nawabs daughter) in 1953 the Nawab convinced Umar Khan to settle in Calcutta permanently in order to teach his daughter. In Calcutta Umar Khan began to offer lessons to aspirants in a very generous manner. His evenings were rich with frequent visits from legendary musicians like Fahimuddin Dagar, Munawar Ali Khan, Latafat Hussain Khan etc.

„Umar Khan was largely trained on the sarod by his father Sakhawat Hussain Khan and in addition adopted much of the Kalpi repertoire that his brother Ilyas Khan had learnt from teachers outside the family (Abdul Ghani Khan, Yusuf Ali Khan). His friends included the likes of Mushtaq Ali Khan, Fahimuddin Dagar and the sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan, a peer group that influenced Umar Khan’s artistic horizons, in addition to his formal training. For much of his professional career, Umar Khan remained in the employ of the nawab of Jalpaiguri. The nawab’s daughter, a serious musician, studied surbahar under Umar Khan for several decades. “Whenever concert offers came my father’s way, the nawab would make a generous counter-offer that killed his financial motivation to perform,” said Irfan Khan. The nawab’s deep respect for the ustad and his benevolent patronage wrecked Umar Khan’s career as a sarod soloist. So frequent were the disruptions that he gradually faded away from the concert stage, and consequently from the memory of the listening public.“ (taken from Arnab Chakrabartys article in scroll.in)

Umar Khan taught many students among them his two sons Shahid Khan & Irfan Khan, Begum Jabbar (sitar & surbahar), Sunil Kanti Maitra (sitar & surbahar), SK Yusuf (vocal), Akhtar Shadmani (vocal), Ruma Roychowdhury (vocal), Matiul Islam (sarod), Purba Lama (sitar), Surendra Kumar (sitar) and Sarbani Dasgupta (sarod).

He passed away from a heartattack on february 22nd 1982 while on tour in Dhaka.

An early recording in Raga Todi:

Raga Shri:

A splendid Raga Darbari recorded on a visit to Pakistan in 1963:

Umar Khan was a well-trained vocalist too as one can witness in this Raga Jaijaiwanti recital:

Raga Puriya Dhanashree on sarod:

A home-recording of Raga Multani played by Umar Khan on Surbahar:

In this impressive clip Umar Khan displays his prowess in and deep knowledge of vocal music and demonstrates around a dozen bandishes in Raga Darbari:

Let us finish with this exquisite Raga Bhairavi from around 1962. Recorded on spool tape by the Nawab of Jalpaigur, where Umar Khan was employed. It is probably the earliest recording of Umar Khan in our archive: