Harmonium maestro Appa Jalgaonkar (87), who accompanied the likes of Bharat Ratna Pt Bhimsen Joshi, died here on Wednesday morning.

Jalgaonkar is credited with elevating the status of harmonium. He had even received the Sangeet Natak Akademi award, which is rarely conferred on a harmonium artiste.

Jalgaonkar, who was not keeping good health for the past 11 years after suffering a paralysis, died in his sleep. While his wife Leela had died 11 years ago, he is survived by disciples Hanumant and Suresh Phadtare.

Several artistes, including veteran tabla artiste Chandrakant Kamat, Pt Suresh Talwalkar, singers Sanjeev Abhyankar, Arati Ankalikar-Tikekar, Shrikant Deshpande, harmonium artiste Arvind Thatte, Pramod Marathe and MLC Ulhas Pawar were among those who paid tributes at Vaikunth Crematorium where he was cremated.

Jalgaonkar was born in a farmer’s family in Jalgaon village in Jalna district on January 1, 1922. His real name was Sakharam Prabhakar Jalgaonkar, but he was fondly called Appa in the music circles.

He was adopted by another family when he was two years old. He did his schooling till class V. The medium of language for school education in Jalna was Urdu after class V. His adopted father didn’t want him to take education in Urdu and he asked him to leave the school and learn some art.

Appa started taking singing lessons from classical vocalist Balkrushnabuva Chikhalikar in Dhrupad-Dhamar gayaki. But he could not pursue singing after he reached puberty, when his voice started cracking. He began playing harmonium and excelled in it.

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