Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - 1988 Andy Kershaw Session

Embed from Getty Images

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan performing 1988.Feb.28 at the Melkweg in Amsterdam, Netherlands
(photo by Frans Schellekens/Redferns)

A longtime favourite, who has been featured here before, doing his very first session for Andy Kershaw. Only two tracks, but in true Qawwali style, pretty long ones , of course. 

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's Kershaw Session #1
recorded: 1988.Feb.25 / broadcasted 1988.Mar.10 / rpt: 1988.Apr.21
setlist: 1.Allah Hoo (8:41) / 2.Yannabee Noor Hotum (9:37) [incl.in/outros by Andy Kershaw]

KHAN-NFA-19880225_Kershaw Session BBC

Nusrat and his party played one year later a second session for Andy Kershaw, alas, to my knowledge,  no recordings of that one have appeared, so far... 

While downloading you can listen here to the special "Guru of Peace" about "The King of Kings of Qawwali" made by Nitin Sawhney for the BBC



Nitin Sawhney presents an introduction to his vocal hero, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who was once dubbed the "Elvis Of The East".
The legendary Qawwali singer's music came over to the UK from Pakistan in the seventies, thanks to the OSA label in Birmingham and the singer entranced Britain's Asian community. Peter Gabriel booked Nusrat for his Womad World Music Festival and subsequently signed him to his Real World label, opening up a whole new audience through his film soundtrack work like The Last Temptation Of Christ and Dead Man Walking. Plus, collaborations with Massive Attack and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
He died in 1997 August at the age of 48, leaving a legacy of over 125 albums. His vocals are kept alive by remixing and new productions by the likes of Gaudi, Asian Dub Foundation as well as Nitin Sawhney himself. His life and legacy is charted here with contributions from Peter Gabriel, his nephew Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Gaudi, actor Michael Sheen, singer Rumer, DJ's Andy Kershaw and Nihal, and producer Jonathan Elias amongst others.

Meher and Sher Ali - 2004.Jun.01 Festival in Fes R6

Meher and Sher Ali in concert [source: oneworldsmusic]

I have posted before about the Festival of World Sacred Music yearly held in Fes [Fez], Morrocco [see 2011]. This time its a recording made in 2004, the year being most famous for Youssou N'Dour presenting his Egypt album there, but I have something else: the brothers Ali from Pakistan.

Biography

Meher and Sher Ali were born in the Pakistani border-town of Kasur in the early 1950s and received their earlier training in classical music from their father who was a court classical singer at the small Sikh principality of Patiala (India). Their father was the disciple of Fateh Ali Khan, the father of the famous Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
Young Sher Ali was the student of Bakhshi Salamat Ali Qawwal, while Meher Ali was taught by Muhammad Ali Fareedi, an ordained Sufi qawwal of the shrine of the 13th century Sufi, Baba Farid. Meher Ali was thus trained in Sufi philosophy, poetry, texts and rituals.
All qawwals must have a deep knowledge of Sufi poetic texts. In practice, this often means sacrificing musical quality to retain purity of text. Meher and Sher are qawwals who have achieved the rare combination of both musical quality and authentic text rendition: Sher is known for his abffity to understand the importance of rhythm (lai-kari) and render classical modes in a strong voice, while Mehr's heart-rending high- pitched voice strikes the heart (zarb-ul-qalb) when the poetry contains words of entreaty or sorrow.
Already at a young age the Ali brothers were recorded for radio and televison in Pakistan, their first album was released in 1980. More than 40 albums followed and they made many international tours spreading their music, texts and everything related to it over all continents.
summarized from bio at oneworldsmusic.com

Listen to a track from their soundcloud page

MEHER & SHER ALI - 2004.Jun.01 - Festival Fes Morrocco R6

rec.2004.Jun.01 at Festival of World Sacred Music in Fes / broadcasted 2010.Jan.12, [former] Dutch Radio 6 - Radio 6 Live

setlist: unknown [so one long uncut part of the concert]

Some Multi Media

• Meher and Sher Ali's soundcloud page
• 2004: Fes Sacred World Music Festival - review on Afropop WorldWide *
• 2004: Fes Sacred World Music Festival - review in The Observer *
• 2019: live performance of Aa Mory Angna Ya Khwaja Ustad - youtube

*included in download

NEVER EVER FORGET:

"il faut me pardonner - you must forgive me"

Pap Djah's last words before left on his own in the Sahara desert (in Niger)

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - add.live track (1994)

Scaning through my archive found a (to the previous post) related live track:

• Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Party - Musst Musst
• 1994.Oct.07, Live at Town Hall New York (from the WMI Archives - unreleased)
• source: 2010.Jan.30, WFMU Transpacific Sound Paradise - World Music Institute 25th Anniversary Archival Retrospective

Listen here (or download at soundcloud):


related pictutre from the next year's 1995.Oct.08 concert in the same Town Hall


source: gettyimages

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - 1993.Nov.06 Music Meeting

Now let's move to some music from another part of our earthly globe, Pakistan.



Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn 1993.Aug.14 at
Central Park Summerstage in New York City
source: gettyimages

Some months ago I posted a K7 from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and now I have for you a concert recording from him and his Party recorded 1993.Nov.06 at the Music Meeting Festival in Nijmegen, Holland. I catched two broadcasts from this concert by Dutch Radio6 in 2010, actually both had the same songs, with only differences in the intro/outro's. So have selected the most complete versions.

The only thing I found about this concert is that is was voted #4 in the list of Best Concerts of the Music Meeting (voting held in 2014 with the 30th aniversary of the festival, see facebook item).
The top 3 was actually: 1.Salif Keita & Les Ambassadeurs (1985) / 2.Youssou N’Dour (1992) / 3.Baaba Maal & Daande Lenol (1988), well that's not a bad list!! Anybody any recordings of these???

Unfortunately I couldn't find any further info nor pictures of this concert, so included some pictures from 1993 concert in New York.


KHAN NFA 19931106 - Music Meeting Nijmegen (bc.R6-2010)

setlist: 1.Allah Hoo Allah Hoo / 2.Ali Da Malang / 3.Mera Ganj-e-Shakkar / 4.Akhiyan Udeek Diyan / (DJ outro)

many thanks to the kind people at nusratonline.com for help with the setlist

In Pakistan (and India) they EAT them RAW also!!!

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Vol.4 (1993, K7, GPL)

OK, let's look a little further outside the African continent, from Youssou to Nusrat is faithwise not such a big step, as both use Sufi in their music.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan / نصرت فتح علی خان‎ (Urdu) / नुसरत फतह अली खान (Hindi) nicknamed "The King of Kings of Qawwali", with Qawwali being the devotional Sufi music.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Vol.4 (1993, K7)

Travelling in north-west India in 1996 picked up this K7 in Udaipur. As usual I was searching for some good local music and this one was strongly recommended by a friend who helped me find my way through this marvelous town. As the texts on the sleeve were mostly in local writing, there was very little I understood from the sleeve. But the music was and still is brilliant!!
for me understandable info from K7:
Vol.4 / Side A-B / Ahamadabad = Ahmedabad (former capital of Gujarat, India) / GPL = Gujrat Pvt. Ltd.
Language: probably Hindi, Urdu or may be local Gujarati?

So after searches on the internet didn't bring up any clues, contacted the people from NusratOnline.com, and they kindly replied with the following info:

Side A:
a1.Kamli Wale Nigahe Karam Ho Agar
      a song asking for attention from Prophet Mohammed PBUH.
      it is believed that Prophet use to wear black blanket, kamli means blanket.
a2.Saari Daulat Khuda Ki Madine Mein Hai
      a praise of God Song
      first line literally means "All of God Treasures resides in madina.."
Side B:
b1.Nami Danam
      poem by Kwaja Ameer Khusro (1253-1325)
      English translation at allpoetry.com/Nami-Danam...

The text on side of your K7 is in Hindi. Nusrat's line of work is enormous & almost impossible to collect, I must confess that even I was not knowing about the songs from Side A of this K7 before I received your mail.

Regards, NusratOnline.com

Nusrat Fatah Ali Khan - Kamli Wale Nigahe Karam Ho Agar (K7-a1, partly)

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Vol.4 (1993, K7, GPL Ahamadabad)

Later searches based on the NusratOnline info brought a discography including:
"Nigah-e-Karam Vol.21" (1981, K7)
tracklist: 1.Kamli Wale Nigah-e-Karam Ho / 2.Sari Daulat Khuda Ki Madine Main Hai / 3.Nami Danam Che Manzil Bood

So most likely my K7 is a (pirate?) copy of a cassette from 1981, that makes sense as the picture on the sleeve looks to be from a younger Nusrat, than what can be found nowadays.
Nusrat died in 1997 August, so one year after I bought this K7, here you can read his in memoriam by real world.
For his 67th birthday (2015.Oct.13) google even made this:


"the person who opened the world's ears to the rich, hypnotic sounds of the Sufis"  

Edit (2016.Feb.27):
Google statement with doodle:
“Thanks to his legendary voice, Khan helped bring "world music" to the world."
Well that's the Americentric view of things, would be much better as follows:
"With his legendary voice Khan helped the closed "western public", to open their ears to music of all parts of the world!!"