There have been a number of music directors that have ruled the Hindi film scene from time to time. One of them was a composer who has consistently given melodies, in his career , from 1948 to 2017 !
Mohammad Zahoor Khayyam, known as Khayyam, generally had four distinct parts in his career. When he debuted he was one in a team of composers. After he went solo, he had a lot of films and though his films often did not succeed, the music was always of a high quality and suiting the film. Then there was a 7-year gap, a sabbatical he took, before joining back for the most memorable phase of his career.
Mohammad Zahoor Khayyam, known as Khayyam, generally had four distinct parts in his career. When he debuted he was one in a team of composers. After he went solo, he had a lot of films and though his films often did not succeed, the music was always of a high quality and suiting the film. Then there was a 7-year gap, a sabbatical he took, before joining back for the most memorable phase of his career.
Khayyam started his career as part of the composer duo known as ...... Sharmaji-Varmaji !Interestingly, both of them were Muslims. Sharmaji was Khayyam, the music director who stayed as a solo composer and is well-known for his melodies. Varmaji was Rehman Varma who left for Pakistan soon after the country was partitioned. They gave music in the film Heer Ranjha ( 1948)
From 1949 to 1967 Khayyam composed alone, but he had to compete with stalwarts like Shankar Jaikishan, Naushad, S.D.Burman, Madan Mohan, O.PNayyar , Hemant Kumar and Kalyanji anandji, amongst other maestros. Despite the high quality music in those years , Khayyam stood out for his music ,but got branded as a composer whose films didn't do well, though no fault of his.
In the period of his absence of 7 years from 1967 to 1974, Hindi film music changed substantially. The legends of 50s were on the wane and those composers who had debuted in 60s were ruling the hit parades. Ravi and S.D.Burman from the 50s, Laxmikant Payelal, R.D.Burman, Usha Khanna and Sonik-Omi from the 60s and Rajesh Roshan, Bappi Lahiri and Ravindra Jain were latest entrants. His last notable film before his self-imposed exile was Akhri Khat 1966 , which had beautiful songs, but the film , being an off-beat one, was unsuccessful at the box-office. Proabably the last straw, which prompted him to opt out.
It is the innate talent, exquisite knowledge and amazing adaptability of Khayyam that within a couple of years Khayyam notched up the biggest success of his career.
Kabhi Kabhie was released in 1976 and this signalled a lot of paradigm shifts. Amitabh Bachchan got a role of a sensitive poet, not playing his usual action -oriented character. Yash Chopra consolidated his brand of Romance, he has triggered off with Daag, three years earlier. Sahir Ludhianvi was the lyricist and Khayyam was the most well-suited to compose his poetry to give a score which had all types of songs, catering to old and young alike. Incidentally, it was Khayyam, who had recorded the Sahir Ludhianvi poem ( which became the title song ) earlier for Chetan Anand's shelved film, "Kaafir". Sudha Malhotra and Geeta Dutt had recorded that version.
The album was both a critical and commercial success and Khayyam remained in the film industry for the next 40 years , composing great songs in numerous films, keeping his signature intact, which was ...MELODY
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