washerman's dog: Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Showing posts with label Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Remembering the Black Taj: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Taj Mahal

Thank you all for your kind words over the past few days. My eldest brother passed away after a terrible and painful battle with the big C. Thankfully he is at peace now. Sadly, I miss him deeply.

He was like all good elder brothers, a friend, a mentor, a sharer of pleasures (such as music) and a role model.

Tonight I share two things we shared and loved. The blues and qawwali.

Many years ago we schemed of setting up a publishing house called Black Taj. We never got there but for many years it was an inspiration to both of us and something we always looked forward to doing.

Enjoy these two offerings tonight. And if you have a brother or sister or parent or partner or child or friend you love a lot think about cooking them dinner and sharing some music you both love with them.

Track Listing:

01 Ain't Gwine To Whistle Dixie Anymo'

02 Take A Giant Step

03 Give Your Woman What She Wants

04 Good Morning Little Schoolgirl

05 You're Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond

06 Six Days On The Road

07 Farther On Down The Road

08 Keep Your Hands Off Her

09 Bacon Fat

10 Linin' Track

11 Country Blues No.1

12 Wild Ox Moan

13 Light Rain Blues

14 A Little Soulful Tune

15 Candy Man

16 Cluck Old Hen

17 Colored Aristocracy

18 Blind Boy Rag

19 Stagger Lee

20 Cajun Tune

21 Fishin' Blues

22 Annie's Lover

Listen here.

Track Listing:

01 Ya Hussain

02 Hum Apni Shaam ko Jab Nazr-e-Jaam

03 Mera Yeh Charkha Nau Lakha

04 Dayaar-e-Ishq Main Apna Maqam Paida Kar

Listen here.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

How to Sing: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Chugtai

Jeff Buckley, the pop tragic hero who drowned after making his brilliant debut album, Grace, in the mid-1990s, once attempted to sing the Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan qawwali Yeh Jo Halka Halka Suroor. It is a (rather shaky but) touching tribute to one of his heroes delivered with nothing but an acoustic guitar and a dollop of chutzpah. His audience is, one senses, about as unsure what to make of this improbable cover as Jeff is of the Urdu pronunciation. But such is the effect the Grandmaster of all qawwals has on mere mortals. Those who absorb his no-nonsense, searching and arresting vocals are often left with an overwhelming urge to immerse themselves in the spiritual slipstream of the unique man’s music even if they risk making fools of themselves in the process.

Jeff Buckley

Under the spotlight tonight is an album of romantic qawwali and sharaabi ghazals by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The album opens with a killer version of Yeh Jo Halka Halka Suroor (This Gentle High I Feel) to which Nusrat FAK brings a level of excrutiating intensity and accusatory hurt, leaving one punch drunk and reeling when the songs comes to an end nearly 24 minutes later. Though this is very much a song sung to a woman, the need and ache in Nusrat’s voice is scary and surely includes the Creator in its pleading. Unlike Buckley’s tentative and strained version there is nothing gentle about this rendition.

Every track on this album is outstanding, though it is hard to replicate the raw emotionalism of the opener. Kali Kali Zulfon is the second qawwali and another epic of being caught up in a mess of feminine blues symbolised by her black locks and even blacker lies. Long one of the Washerman Dog’s favorite Nusrat nuggets the version on this album is filled with more musical banter between Nusrat and his ‘party’ than the version released on the album Shahenshah (RealWorld) in Europe and America in the early 90s.

The remaining three tracks are ghazals, the best of which, Main Talkhi Hayat Se by Sahir Siddiqi is a showcase of the amazing control Nusrat had over his voice. He shouts but he also barely whispers the lines at times in this lilting paean to his true love. And you are no less enthralled. An added pleasure on this cut is the tabla accompaniment. In my mind Pakistani tabla players have it all over their Indian counterparts and to find out why listen to this song. The drumming here swings hard with as much soul and funk as anything ever laid down by Bernard Purdie. It rocks it drives it rings. The polar opposite of anything (with due respect to) the fabled Zakir Hussain whose own style is elegant and stylish but not urgent like most Pakistani tabla playing.

The album wraps up with a poppy ghazal which despite the electronic keyboard noodling is another all time favorite. Gorgeous melody, sentimental lyric, stunning vocals and tabla playing as busy and interesting as Keith Moon in his prime.

A great album to be played over and over and over. Warning: You may be tempted to try singing these yourself!

Track Listing:

01. Yeh Jo Halka Halka Suroor

02. Kali Kali Zulfon

03. Main Talkhi Hayat Se

04. Humein Sharaab Pilao

05. Poocha Kisi Ne Haal

Listen here.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Bombay, DJs, Gurus and Ustads: Contemporary Indian Pop

The shadow of the India’s movie studios are large and deep. Twenty years ago if you wanted to make it the music business you had do puja (or perhaps tapasya) in one of the great film making centers like Mumbai or Chennai. Virtually all popular music in India had some link to the film world: singers, musicians, composers, ‘music directors’. The 400+ films produced each year had an insatiable appetite for talent and of course what money was to be made was in the land of the film stars.

Small sub-cultures of rock and rollers and pop singers did exist but very few achieved a national following. Like so much else in India, the pop music scene in India is developing at breakneck speed. Technology, cash, an open economy and a huge diaspora of Indians from LA to London and Sydney to Durban have all contributed to an absolute flowering of popular music that has no longer depends on or refers to Bollywood.

The next few posts will explore some of this music which is becoming more diverse and interesting with each passing year.

Tonight the Washerman’s Dog presents two albums of similar but different sounds for your listening pleasure.

First up: Bombay Streets a collection of tracks that claim to be on ‘Bombay Theme’. What the anonymous producers seem to have done is taken some very good music and mixed in some contemporary beats or attached ‘Bombay’ to the title. So the ‘Bombay theme’ is a bit contrived. If you’re looking for music about bhel puri and Crawford Market, (not sure such songs exist) please keep searching. They are not here.

But the music on the disc is nevertheless very nice. There is a lot of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, including the ultimate ‘global mixed’ Mustt Mustt. But in between are lovely songs by Alamgir (one of the earliest Pakistani/Bangladeshi pop stars from the 70s), a wonderful slice of contemporary ‘thumri’ by Shubha Mudgal (from my hometown of Allahabad) and some modern balladry from the Telegu composer/musician known as M.M. Kreem.

Track Listing:

01 Mustt Mustt Bombay [Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan]

02 Calling The Beloved [Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan]

03 Jugni In Bombay [Alamgir]

04 Bombay Mujra [Aarti and Shubha]

05 Salute To Haji Ali [Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan]

06 Night Walk At Sea [Chitra and M.M. Kreem]

07 Lost In Dreams [Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan]

08 Bombay Rains [Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan]

09 Life In Bombay [M.M. Kreem]

10 Now It's Mustt Mumbai [Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan]

Listen here

Next up: Gurus in Collaboration, like Bombay Streets, an anonymously produced collection of DJ mixed qawwali, sufi, folk, classical and pop based songs. The title is slightly awkward and while evidence of collaboration is clear on many of the tracks, several others seem to be the production of single artists. A minor point. Never judge a book by the cover or an album by its name I say.

There are the obligatory Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan mixes (which is not to say they are tired or poorly done, only that India seems to be SO obsessed with the man) but these are complemented by some very interesting artists like Bally Sagoo (British Asian musician and DJ born in Delhi, but raised in Birmingham, England, in a predominantly black neighbourhood, influenced by disco, rap and Motown music), Ustad Sultan Khan (a sarangi player and singer and member of the Indian fusion group Tabla Beat Science, with Zakir Hussain and Bill Laswell), DJ Suketu and DJ Aqeel (Mumbai based DJs) and Kailash Kher (wildly popular Kashmiri folk and pop singer). The set ends with A.R. Rahman’s beautiful Bombay Theme from the musical Bombay Dreams.

Enjoy, contemporary Indo-pop.