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I couldn't get the melody out of my head for days. Can't believe such a gem escaped me for so long. I first heard this qawwali a year ago, randomly browsing videos on Nusrat's Facebook fanpage. Just when you start to think you've heard everything by Nusrat come along 15 albums of new material. 40 minutes of unadulterated joy, this one. Both these poets feature heavily in Nusrat's ghazal pieces. This is an Urdu ghazal penned by Fana Bulandshahri, although the first few verses during the alaap are by Saghar Siddiqui. And then slowly the party, led by Nusrat, launches into the main body of the song. Followed by an alaap and opening verses, which is sort of like a tuning session for the main vocalists, and where they introduce the raag or scale the qawwali is in. Initially there's about a 3-minute instrumental intro or a sazina, where the main melody is laid down (the harmonium intro here is possibly my favorite). This qawwali follows a classic Nusrat template. And in the same city of Birmingham in 1980, Nusrat held his first British concert, which so captivated the audience that the organizers Oriental Star Agencies had him come back year after year.Īnyway, the above video is from a live concert in Wolverhampton, not far from Birmingham, in 1983.
Qawali by nusrat series#
That same year Imran Khan went mano-a-mano with Ian Botham in a 3-Test series starting in Birmingham, and while he may have ended up on the losing side, with his superlative performance with both bat and ball (21 wickets at 19 212 runs at 53) he firmly announced himself as the all-rounder of the decade.
![qawali by nusrat qawali by nusrat](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ol7xfKdk8SA/maxresdefault.jpg)
Jahangir Khan had begun his dominance of the British Open squash tournament in 1982, and he'd go on to win it a record 10 consecutive times. The early 80s were a good time to be a Khan from Pakistan in England. Which made me appreciate even more both the complexity of his music as well as the complete mastery over the art that he and members of his qawwali party exhibited. Inspired by incessant listening I bought a harmonium in 2008 so I could try and play along (having long abandoned the notion of singing along). Since then his qawwalis have been a non-stop soundtrack to my life, initially helping me through some tough times, and over the years getting to the point where now it's really the only music I listen to on a regular basis. I began to listen to Nusrat in earnest around 5 years ago after happening upon my brother's rather large collection of his music.
Qawali by nusrat plus#
That plus the fact that given the amount of music he recorded even a top 100 wouldn't cover everything. This is a somewhat personal list so I'm sure there will be plenty of other people's favorites that I'll miss out on. On the occasion of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's 15th death anniversary today, thought I'd post some music of his that I like.