D. K. Jayaraman
(1928-1991)

D. K. Jayaraman hailed from Kanchipuram.  From his teen years to his forties he gave concerts with his sister and guru,  Smt. D.K.
Pattamal.  After his family moved to Madras in the 1940's, young Jayaraman furthered his musical skills by learning from several well
known masters like Ariyakudi  Ramanuja Iyengar, Madurai Mani Iyer, Muthiah Bhagavatar, Rajaratnam Pillai, Papanasam Sivan, Koteeswara Iyer and others.

D.K.Jayaraman was able to establish his individuality as a musician when he started giving solo concerts.  He demonstrated singular
creativity when rendering songs.  By constant practice and singing, he acquired a pliable voice which he used to its fullest range. Rather shy by nature,  he was a down-to-earth, simple man, not given to fanfare.  In fact, he used to feel bashful if a large number of his admirers were around him. He was most comfortable in small gathering.  Always accomodative, he was thoughtful of his accompanying artistes. He planned his concert well and it is said, he would rehearse his pallavi very thoroughly.

DKJ  had  a large stock of  Muthuswami Dikshitar's,  Shyama Sastri's plus Tyagaraja's kritis.  Like  Kanchipuram Naina Pillai, DKJ used to sing uncommon kritis in  rare ragas.  A few examples come to mind:

Parvati ninnu - Kalgada (Syama Sastri)
Natimata marachitivo- Devakriya (Tyagaraja),
Shanka-chakra-gadha panim -Purnachandrika (Muthuswami Dikshitar)
Samayamide- Budhamanohari (Muthiah Bhagavatar)

Accolades and  honours came to him one after another and the most coveted was the title of  Sangita Kalanidhi  from the Madras Music
Academy. Unfortunately, he did not live long to cherish the recognition he got from the Music Academy. He died within a month after the title was conferred on him.
 
His concert repertoire included many Tamil songs. He was instrumental in popularizing compositions of many modern composers like  Papanasam Sivan, Periasami Tooran, Tanjavur Sankara Iyer,  Surajananda,  Neela Ramamurthy,  Srivatsa and others.  He had a large number of  rasikas and trained several disciples.  His daughter and his disciple, Sukanya gave vocal support to him in many of his concerts.  Other prominant disciples include Vijay Siva, Balaji Shankar and violinist, R. K. Shriramkumar.  His son, J. Vaidyanathan is a leading mrudangist.
 
Rasikas often felt happy listening to DKJ's concert  as he could feel the pulse of the audience and  modify  his presentation.  He was
willing to render songs requested by rasikas.

Written by Ashok Madhav


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