Orifxon Xatamov (born 1924 or 1925) - his name is given sometimes also as Orif or Arif Xatamov, and both versions can appaer in different spellings - belongs to the Maqom tradition of the Ferghana Valley and was a student of the legendary Jurakhan Sultanov (1912-1977), who was also the teacher of Mamurjan Uzakov.
Theodore Levin devoted a very beautiful chapter to Orifxon Xatamov in his very interesting book "The Hundred Thousand Fools of God - Musical Travels in Central Asia". Some excerpts from this chapter, named "The Avatar of a Master", which is based on talks with the master in the early 1990s, can be read here. Orifxon Xatamov is depicted here as a master musician deeply rooted in the musical and spiritual (Sufi) traditions of his country.
The recordings here - again from the collection of MP3-CDs which our dear friend Danny brought a couple of years ago from Uzbekistan - are probably from the 1960s to the 1980s and were probably published originally on Melodiya LPs during Sowjet times. There is also a second MP3-CD by him which we will post in the future.
We already posted in 2012 some tracks by him. See here. But the tracks there are all included in and probably taken from these two MP3-CDs.
This MP3-CD contains 5 folders named CD 1 to 5. The first two folders are contained in the download part 1 and folders 3 to 5 in part 2.
Only today (2nd of december 2015), when I listened to the complete MP3-CD again, I realized that I forgot to post the last part of this CD. There are two more folders on it named CD 11 and CD 13. Both can be downloaded here as part 3. CD 13 is by other singers in the same tradition: tracks 1 to 7 by Ismoilon & Mukhamadon Xotamovlar and tracks 8 to 16 by Beknazar Dustmurodov. Maybe two sons and a disciple of Orifxon Xatamov.
