Kesarbai Kerkar was attracted to musical performances and singing since childhood, and was thus given under the wings of Ustad Abdul Karim Khan, and later under Pt. Bhaskarbua Bhakle and Pt. Ramakrishnabua Vaze. However, she could not continue with any of these titanic men. Later, while in Bombay, she had chanced upon to hear a concert of the legendary Ustad Alladiya Khan, under whom she had passed her most substantial years of rigorous training and riyaz. The Ustad, who was initially inhibited to take her as his disciple due to his personal reasons, was later assured by his student`s exceptional power to stretch beyond her own limitations. His every nuance was absorbed by Kesarbai religiously. He made her a finished Hindustani classical singer by the termination of her time period. She started excelling in every genre of classical singing, and had an unusual style of masculinity within her tone, standing apart from her other female counterparts. However, outlandish as she was in several aspects, Kesarbai always believed in singing for class and not for the mass. She thus restricted her concerts only within intellectual audience, with the faith that music should never be compromised under any circumstances. Yet the fact remains that she possessed complete command over every khayal she sang.

Along with Pt. Mallikarjun Mansoon and Mogubai Kurdikar, Kesarbai Kerkar was one of the finest exponents of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana. Born in 1890 in the village of Keri near Panaji in Goa into a Kalawant family, Kesarbai`s deep love for music was evident at the age of eight. Her introduction into music was with devotional music at the temple of Mangash, as this was the only place where one could listen to and learns music. Though she learned bhajans and keertans for a while, her heart thirsted for classical music. Respite came when she was taken to Kolhapur and put under the tutelage of Ustad Abdul Karim Khan for a while. But she had to discontinue and return home a year later. For the next two decades she learned under various eminent singers like Pt. Bhaskarbua Bhakle and Pt. Ramakrishnabua Vaze erratically. But she had to discontinue as her chosen gurus moved places frequently.

While staying in Bombay with her uncle`s family she chanced to hear the music of Ustad Alladiya Khan and was immediately drawn to it. She approached him and beseeched him to accept her as his disciple. But this was easier said than done, because Alladiya Khan was a fastidious and clannish sort of an Ustad, who was reluctant to share his vast knowledge of music or teach it to anyone outside the family fold. He refused to accept her initially, but gave in reluctantly after a while, after being persuaded by some of Kesarbai`s friends and well-wishers. One of the conditions he posed was that she follow him wherever he went. So in 1920, Kesarbai became a formal disciple after undergoing the traditional ganda-bandha ceremony involving the pledging of a bond between the student and the teacher through the tying of a thread on the student`s wrist.

Alladiya was a demanding and meticulous teacher. Soon enough, the Ustad realized that Kesarbai was an apt and sincere student. He made her practice for eight to ten hours a day for a long period of time making her repeat note-exercises several times until she attained perfection. The strain of this rigorous training began to show on her soon. He began to suffer from attacks of colds and soreness of throat, Once her condition was so bad that Khansahib allowed a doctor to come over and give her injections from time to time, only to resume her training immediately thereafter. Alladiya Khan was not one to make any concessions to anyone under any circumstances. The intense phase of Kesarbai`s training continued for nearly eight years during which time she mastered the elements of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana fully.

Kesarbai continued her training under her guru till the time of his death in 1946. She would also accompany him during his concerts at various venues. This exposure gave her valuable stage experience, which was to prove useful in the decades that followed. At the time of Khansahib`s death in 1946, Kesarbai had reached the pinnacle of perfection he desired of her. Her rise to fame was swift. Her music had earlier come in for appreciation by none less than Rabindranath Tagore, who hailed her as `Surashri`, a title that struck, in a very eloquent piece after hearing her in 1938.

But, the great pity of the situation was that her music was only heard by the connoisseurs and people of eminence, for she had a conceited disdain for singing to the general public. For some strange reason, she took public performances to be a sign of a hopeless compromise. She strongly felt that a singer ought never to give up her prestige or dignity in a bid to win wide acclaim. Scrupulousness, fastidiousness and a lofty disdain of public approval remained the hallmarks of her personality and music.

However, the present age has very few records available in the market that gives one a clear idea of her voice, style of singing and approach. From the few, though significant, commercial recordings one has, it becomes clear that hers was a crystal-clear, full-throated and compact voice capable of touching all the three registers effortlessly. The soothingly sweet tone and honeyed emotionalism are absent in her voice. It possessed an unusual masculine gravitas, especially when she sang in the lower register in slow tempo and a virile aggressiveness when she rendered taans. Her lovely patterning and penchant for aakaar or open-voice singing in an unbroken manner, punctured by subtle modulations, gave her singing a strong sense of continuity. Her style of singing gives an impression of slow dignity and masterful ness. Kesarbai`s music is not so much expansive as dense - every moment of it has something new to offer. This, most definitely, is not the music for the laid-back and lazy listener. Her command over laya had her contemporaries in awe of her. Her taans have been justly eulogized for their clarity, energy and their gushing quality by many of her contemporaries. As with most in her gharana, she specialized in singing rare and compound raagas with masterly ease.

HMV has brought out her three-minute recordings of several raagas. Of these her Lalit, Desi, Todi, Gaud Malhar, Nat Kamod, Lalita Gauri and Poorya Dhanashri reveal aspects of her gayaki. The RPG Heritage series consists of longer live recordings. Her Lalit, Khokar and Malkauns show her in excellent control. Her Khokar, a specialty of her gharana, is breathtaking, for it gives one a good sense of her intricate and undulating taans, her compact mode of singing and the robust resonance and volume pf her voice. Likewise, her Nat Kamod is also an excellent vignette of her art. It is indeed unfortunate that this haughty and patrician singer has given every listener so little of her genius in terms of recorded music. Apparently, she did not care for public acclaim, as she did not for commercialized modes of self-advertisement. The slow surgings of the rising democratic-egalitarian tides did not so much as wet the hem of her proud self or that of her art. Her art was exclusive and she gave it to the exclusive.

Kesarbai was quite a favourite in the South. M.S. Subbalakshmi, who heard her as a young woman in Madras, rated Kesarbai as one of her favorites. Bhimsen Joshi acknowledged that he was taken by her full-throated singing and command over laya. Today, her gayaki lives through her one and only disciple, Dhondutai Kulkarni, a highly gifted, though sadly sidelined, scion of the Kesarbai style.

Kesarbai was widely honoured and feted during her years of glory. No music festival in the 1940s and 1950s was complete without her. Some of her best concerts, it seems, were given at private soirees. She gave up public performances from 1967 on, owing to her advanced years and declining powers. She was wholly content to move out of public memory in the decade that followed and live as a recluse. Only her contemporaries saw the yawning gulf in the world of Hindustani music following her death in 1977. The dignity and depth she brought to khayal singing proved inspiring to several singers who followed close behind.