Yusuf Ali Khan was a master sitarist as well as a renowned sitar maker of his time located in Lucknow. He was trained by his father Bhondu Khan and Ustad Abdul Ghani Khan of the now extinct Dhrupad Gharana of Kalpi. His sitar workshop was in the same house as legendary Ustad Sakhawat Hussain Khan´s family and they were close peers and exchanged many old compositions. He took over the sitar training of Ustad Sakhawat Khans younger son Ustad Ilyas Khan. Yusuf Ali Khan also trained his son Ismail Khan who must have been a promising sitar player in his early years. Unfortunatly we have no recordings of or information on him.

Our album „A pearl from Lucknow“ with some highlights of his longer recordings:

The longest recording of Yusuf Ali Khan in our archive is this solo recital in Raag Multani from 1955 in which he demonstrates and comments several stages of what goes by the name „alap-jor-jhala“ today:

This magnificient broadcast recording in Raag Darbari is from 1961 and -just like the Multani Alap before- allows deep insights into the old style of sitar playing:

For most modern day connoisseurs of instrumental Raga music sitar-player Yusuf Ali Khan has remained a mere footnote when reading about the genres history. Like many, i came across his name for the first time in the writings and/or interviews of the great Ravi Shankar who mentioned Yusuf Ali as a maker of one of his early sitars (a big almost surbahar-like kachhua style sitar) and as one of the sitar-players he really admired when he was young and whom he still rememberd fondly towards the end of his life.
For years the only audio recording of Yusuf Ustads music available online was an Ahir Bhairav on Rajan P. Parrikars website. In February 2020 I started to continuously release recordings from the archives of Irfan MD Khan on our LSGA You Tube channel.

Alap in Raga Des:

To get a clearer picture of the man, his music and his time i am pasting two lenghty texts about him. First one is a brilliant write-up by my Guru Bhai and scholar Max Katz. The second text from 1958 is by S.K.Chaubey.

Citing a passage from

„Sites of Memory in Hindustani Music: Yusuf Ali Khan and the Sitar Shops of Lucknow„

Max Katz Ethnomusicology Forum, 2014 Vol. 23, No. 1, 67–93;

„…. he (Yusuf Ali Khan) was introduced to musical performance by his father, Bhondu, who learned sitar from Azam Khan, court musician for the ruler of Khajurgaon, a small principality in the district of Rai Bareli about 80 km south of Lucknow (Yusuf Ali Khan, interview by M. Niazi [recorded at All India Radio], 1961,
Lucknow). Azam Khan was one of many nineteenth-century musicians who travelled great distances to have their instruments serviced at Bhondu’s famous shop. While in Lucknow, Azam Khan would take up residence in the shop, which served not only as a space for the repair and manufacture of instruments, but also as the sleeping quarters for visiting musicians. As Lucknow-based music journalist Susheela Misra writes, Bhondu’s shop was: really the meeting and halting place of some of the most well-known ustads [master musicians] of the times. They came to get their tanpuras, sitars, surbahars, veenas, and sarods repaired, but they stayed on as welcome guests enjoying the kind host’s warm hospitality. In winter, the teapot was constantly full of boiling tea, and in the hot months, the jugs were always overflowing with delicious ‘sharbats’. (Misra 1985: 51; see also Avasthi 1976: 41)

During his lifetime Yusuf Ali Khan recorded at least three 78rpm shellac discs with Ragas Adana & Sarparda Bilawal (HMV_P.17566_80-2394); Gour Malhar & Malkauns; Suha Sughrahi & Jhinjhoti. Here is a rare recording of a Bilampat/Masitkhani Gat in Raag Adana, kindly shared by Mr. Rantideb Maitra via Pokri Pokis wonderful YouTube channel:

By providing accommodation and amenities to musicians such as Azam Khan within his shop, Bhondu gained access to their musical knowledge and also built relationships that would encompass many generations. Azam Khan’s eldest son, Abdul Ghani Khan, a legendary sitar master in his own right, likewise became a regular visitor to Bhondu’s shop. Present-day Lucknow resident Qamar Ali (a great admirer of Yusuf Ali Khan as well as both his nephew and son-in law) relates that, according to the oral history of the family, during one of these visits by Abdul Ghani Khan sometime at the end of the nineteenth century, the young Yusuf Ali Khan was misbehaving terribly. Apparently the child was so naughty and undisciplined
that not even the local maulvī (religious teacher) could subdue him, and on this particular day Bhondu was at his wit’s end. Seeing Bhondu’s distress, Abdul Ghani Khan offered to take the child with him back to his home in Khajurgaon to train him in the art of classical music and socialise him into the world of formal discipleship, wherein he would be responsible for carrying water from the well, cleaning the master’s dishes and sweeping his floor (Qamar Ali, interview by author, 8 March 2009, Lucknow). In his
recorded interview, Yusuf Ali Khan explains that his teacher demanded he practice sitar from 10:30 or 11:00 o’clock at night until four in the morning. To keep from nodding off during nightlong practice, Yusuf Ali Khan notes that he would tie his hair by a rope to the ceiling, a frequently invoked trope in Hindustani music culture communicating dogged dedication (Yusuf Ali Khan, interview by M. Niazi [recorded at All India Radio], 1961, Lucknow; see also Misra 1985: 52).

One of his 78RPM disc cuts in Raga Suha Sugrahi from Pokri Pokis wonderful YouTube channel. As we have the same gat in three of his later recordings as well it is fair to assume this was one of his trademark pieces:

Yusuf Ali Khan, the Player

When Yusuf Ali Khan returned to Lucknow after 13 years of training in Khajurgaon, he emerged as a top-flight performing artist. So tremendous was Yusuf Ali Khan’s renown that he was summoned to perform in London for the Coronation of King George V in 1911 (Yusuf Ali Khan, interview by M. Niazi [recorded at All India Radio], 1961, Lucknow; Misra 1985: 52). On the opening day of the Fourth All-India Music Conference in 1925, after performances by such esteemed artists as sarodist Allauddin Khan, tabla player Abid Husain Khan, and vocalists Nazir Khan and Mushtaq Husain Khan of Rampur, Yusuf Ali Khan enjoyed the honour of performing the final and thus most prestigious item of the evening (Report 1925: 56).2 In 1958, four years before his death, Yusuf Ali Khan became the first sitarist selected for an award by the newly founded national academy of music, dance and drama, the Sangeet Natak Akademi, displayed in Figure 3 (Report 2007: 6).3 In his autobiography, the world-famous sitar player Ravi Shankar cited Yusuf Ali Khan as one of his greatest influences, writing that Yusuf Ali Khan’s sitar playing ‘was an inspiration to me’ ([1997] 1999: 89).

Interview with Yusuf Ali Khan. Even for non-Urdu speakers it is a delight to hear the man talk and demonstrate his baj/style:

Unlike many other master musicians of his day, Yusuf Ali Khan never served as a court musician. Abha Avasthi, a sitar student of Yusuf Ali Khan’s primary disciple, Ilyas Khan, recounts the poignant story of Yusuf Ali Khan’s refusal to join the royal court of Gidhaur, Bihar. As Avasthi writes, in 1933 or 1934, Yusuf Ali Khan travelled to Gidhaur to take part in a competition attended by all of the greatest musicians of
the era, and hosted by the Raja of Gidhaur along with his most prestigious court musician, Ustad Mohammad Ali Khan, a direct descendant of Tansen, the sixteenth century patriarch of Hindustani music. Musicians travelled great distances to participate in this competition, the primary prize for which—beyond ‘1000 rupees cash, a gold medallion, a shawl, a Banārasī turban, and a bolt of brocaded fabric’—was a place among the court musicians of Gidhaur. After days of performances, Yusuf Ali Khan was selected as the winner, yet refused the invitation to serve the Raja as court musician, reciting a well-known Urdu poem (Avasthi 1976: 42; see also Misra 1985: 53).
Lucknow ham par fidā aur ham fidā-e Lucknow
Kyā yeh tāqat āsmān kī jo chur āye Lucknow
(I am devoted to Lucknow and Lucknow is devoted to me
What force can separate me from Lucknow? [translation by author])
With this compact couplet Yusuf Ali Khan thwarted the power structure that compelled even the greatest musicians to leave their homes—often travelling from court to court in search of patronage—instead asserting his own prerogative to stand at the centre of his artistic world. He could do so because he operated outside the system of feudal patronage, the master of his own venue: the musical instrument shop.

Labeled as „Alhaiya Bilawal“ this gat is actually in Raag Sarparda Bilawal. Thanks to Mr. Rantideb Maitra and Kiran Naiga aka Pokri Poki for sharing.

Yusuf Ali Khan, the Maker

Upon his return from his discipleship in Khajurgaon, Yusuf Ali Khan opened his own shop on Latouche Road, where he perpetuated his hereditary trade as an instrument maker. By the 1930s Yusuf Ali Khan had become famous not only as a performer but as a craftsman, attracting patrons who travelled great distances to visit his shop. Among the most prestigious of these was Ravi Shankar. Reflecting on his debut
performance in India in 1939, the celebrated sitarist recalled that he played a large, ‘surbahar-like sitar made by the great Ustad Yusuf Ali Khan’, further noting that he continued to use this very sitar as his primary instrument for several years thereafter ([1997] 1999: 89; see also Bose 2011).
Today Yusuf Ali Khan’s shop has been replaced by Seth Brothers, an industrial hardware store specialising in V-belts. Qamar Ali (pictured in Figure 3 along with his wife, Yusuf Ali Khan’s youngest daughter) spent time in the shop as a young man in the 1950s and remembers the atmosphere in those days. As he describes it, Yusuf Ali Khan’s shop was unusually large and was equipped with a tap for running water, a rare luxury for any shop in those days. These resources allowed Yusuf Ali Khan to use the shop not only as a workplace but—like his father’s shop—as both a gathering place and a teaching studio where he cultivated relationships that transcended social, professional, and musical boundaries (Qamar Ali, interview by author, 7 January 2011, Lucknow). Ravi Shankar built a relationship with Yusuf Ali Khan through repeated visits to his shop in Lucknow. In his autobiography, Shankar evokes the centrality of friendship and mutual respect to the unusual dynamics of the instrument shop, writing:
Ethnomusicology Forum 79
[Yusuf Ali Khan] had a shop in Aminabad, the main road in Lucknow, and whenever I visited the city (as I later did regularly, after I started recording radio programmes there) I would spend time watching him work. He was a wonderful person, so loving. ([1997] 1999: 89)5 Ravi Shankar makes clear in his writing that he respected Yusuf Ali Khan as both a maker and a player, cultivating an enduring relationship with him through time spent in the heightened space of the master’s shop“ from „Sites of Memory in Hindustani Music: Yusuf Ali Khan and the Sitar Shops
of Lucknow“ Max Katz Ethnomusicology Forum, 2014 Vol. 23, No. 1, 67–93;

A text on Yusuf Ali Khan by S.K. Chaubey from his book “Musicians I Have Met”, published in 1958 by Lucknow University:

Yusuf Ali Khan

While writing about Yusuf Ali Khan I am reminded of Lucknow of the last two and a half decades. Yusuf Ali khan (or just “Yusuf Ustad” as he was familiarly known to us) is like a concise Lucknow dictionary of music and musicians. To us, from our younger days, he has been a popular figure, lively and ubiquitous, reminding us of the faded spring time of the earlier music of Lucknow. He reminds us of the days gone by, of the music that is now heard no more. With the exception of the late Khurshed Ali Khan (who was about ninety when he died) and one or two other musicians living now, Yusuf Ustad is almost the last of the representatives of the old order in music.
In his younger days he lived in a different Lucknow with its last remnants of old culture and art. He partook of the last feast of decadence which is now more of a dream than a luxury. People now talk of decadence as if it meant decay and death. In the (eighteen-) nineties when they talked of decadence and aesthetic values in England and France, Lucknow saw the last brilliance of the flame of genius in music. It was the ultimate flowering of the genius of Lucknow music, and its later passing away had all the voluptuousness of decadence as a second birth and innocence as inevitable ripening of the fruit of the senses. The music of the period saw a second awakening, a fresh renaissance of aesthetic sensibilities.

A lavish thumri style Kafi:

Yusuf Ali Khan and his Ustad Abdul Ghani Khan composed many beautiful gats. This is one of them featuring both Nishads in Raag Jhinjhoti:

An Amateur

Yusuf Ustad has known the last chapters of the colourful Binda-Kalka history of music and dance. As far as music is concerned, he has known the glory that was Lucknow. He does not belong to a family of professional Sitar-players. He is an amateur in every sense of the word. His brother was a school teacher and one of his nephews is an important officer in the army. He illustrates the important fact that music, like every art, is not the monopoly of a family or group of musicians. I know of some of the descendants of well-known musicians who know almost nothing of music but somehow manage to live on the declining fame of their forbears. Their vocation is idle anecdotal chatter about all their yesterdays they had never seen. We have dozens of such musicians without training and traditional roots whose business is it to recapture their past through the gift of conversation.
Ustad Yusuf has had his training under the late Ustad Abdul Ghani Khan, a comparatively obscure but very able Sitar expert who had the knack and skill of an excellent teacher. The dear old man was affectionate and humble and had no pretensions to gifts that nature had not generously endowed him with. One would see him at Ustad Yusuf´s famous Sitar-shop, a meeting place for all musicians and music lovers. He would impart his art to every genuine aspirant of the art. Even beginners, who sat at the feet of Ustad Yusuf, would pester him with all kinds of demands but he would not lose his temper. He had the patience and imagination of a born teacher

Raga Durga, Alap & Drut Gat:

Golden Mean

In his earlier days Ustad Yusuf was an immaculately dressed musician who would be seen at every representative Mehfil with a personality of his own. He would get into the mood and give his best to the delight of the listeners. His Alap and his Gat even now bear his own characteristic stamp. He marshals his musical facts skilfully and develops his theme methodically with an eye on precision and his traditional technical dialogue (unlike the monologue and soliloquy of the moderns) with the Tabla-player becomes a duel without its horrors. His intriguing sense of time is a valuable asset. He resists the temptation to succumb to over-refinement and unnatural sophistication. His style avoiding to be over-ambitious, illustrates, a golden mean in the art of exposition. One must mark the emphasis he so instinctively puts on the purer patterns of the traditional “Tantra Baj” or instrumental style that always avoids a second-hand imitation of the human voice. Even some of our celebrities today find the temptation too irresistible. In fact they explore regions that are traditionally forbidden.
The late Hamid Hussain of Lucknow was our great imaginative Sitar-player. He is no more. I have always classed Yusuf Ali with him as they seemed to complete each other in more ways than one. If one were to make a search for the traditionalists among Sitar-players, the names would be very few, but Ustad Yusuf will be on the list. He belongs to the old order. The late Raja Nawab Ali, was aware of his talents and inspired him truly.

A prime example of the old gat-toda sitar style in Raag Tilak Kamod:

Ilyas Khan

The late Ustad Sakhawat Khan was as Sarod-player and knew his limitations with regards to the style and technique of the Sitar of which he was not an expert. He knew about the rare gifts of his friend Yusuf and it was a wise decision when he encouraged and inspired his sons, Umar and Ilyas, to learn from him. Ilyas, the youthful Sitar-player, has had the privilege of sitting at the feet of Ustad Yusuf. The Ustad imparted to him the knowledge of the Sitar although he strays into improvisation made easier by imitation of others. I wish Ilyas good luck. I hope he will be a true disciple of his Guru in more ways than one with the spirit of humility and devotion. But we cannot forget his son Ismail Khan, a rising artiste of promise. He is a shy, unassuming young instrumentalist and his style has verve. He is staid and sincere about his business and has inherited his father´s humility and grace. He is not a gate-crasher but it is a pleasure to meet him also to listen to his delightful recital. I wish him the best of luck. Ustad Yusuf is now greying fast but he is an eternal child with the spirit of laughter in him. He is young with his puckish humour and his sense of fun that never fails. While the late Sakhawat would exhaust all his Rabelaisian art to gain a point, Yusuf would hurl back his repartee at him with a child´s mischief writ large upon his face. Even now when he gets into a reminiscent mood, no one can beat him in the art of conversation. His face would beam with the laughter of memories and he would invoke the past, as if gently stirring the fading embers of his memory. But a minor allusion would put him on the royal track of time.

Somewhere in 1911 he visited England to attend the London Exhibition. Attired handsomely in the Lucknow Angarkha, he was a familiar and popular figure (young, slim, tall and handsome with the abandon of youth and gaiety) in London. Even now he can sit down and describe the visit with the same early zest of life. Now he has retired from his busy and active life. But whenever I meet him he is the same Ustad Yusuf, the very embodiment of courtesy, charm, wit and his gracious self. Pupils from distant provinces come and sit at his feet for learning the Sitar. He is a loving teacher with a kind heart.
An instrumentalist like Ustad Yusuf Ali should be a valuable asset to music institutions. Now he has received the Akadami Award and it is a recognition worthy of the man and his art. One wishes him all good luck and many fruitful years of service for the noble cause of music.“ 

Gat-Toda in Raag Jaijaiwanti: