Posts for 'Music' Category

Ali Zafar On the sets of ‘Tere Bin Laden’, everyone got panic attacks as the Pakistani singer turned actor met a minor accident and suffered from temporary memory less.

Ali Zafar must have been shocked more than the unit members of the movie’ Tere Bin Laden’. During the shooting, Ali was supposed to ride a bike, but suddenly the brakes of the bikes failed. Within seconds he fell headfirst on the ground.

Due to the minor accident, the actor came under a state of temporary amnesia and the whole team got panicked. A production member adds, “Ali had minor scratches and bruises after the fall.

He also began asking strange questions and couldn’t remember where he was or how he got there.The production team had to rush Ali to a hospital.”

“Ali kept asking ‘How did I get to India? What am I doing here?’ and other questions that left us perplexed. The doctor advised him to rest.

And Ali took a day off to recuperate.” The questions fired by Ali of a sudden startled everyone and everyone is waiting for him to become fit and fine as before.

The messy court battle between playback singer Adnan Sami and his estranged wife, Sabah Galadari, seems to have halted for now.

Accusations were hurled back and forth, both alleging infidelity and cheating. Sabah had asked for a Rs10 crore-plus compensation.

But now, it seems, the singer can breathe in peace after the family court passed a judgment in his favour on Wednesday.

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In the fields of Punjab where he grew up, farmers would sing Sufi songs - even his family sang. That is how popular singer Hans Raj Hans learnt his music. Today, he believes, Bollywood takes liberty with the genre.

“The words and the essence of the ‘kalams’ (works) cannot change, only the orchestra can change. It is a good thing that Sufism and its music are reaching out to the masses, but the music should not detract from tradition. The exponents cannot play around with the compositions of the great saints,” Hans Raj told IANS in an informal chat.

The musician, who has performed with Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, feels, “Bollywood has been taking liberty with Sufi music”. Hans Raj nurtures a dream - he wants to build an ashram for Sufi music so that the centuries-old genre can be passed on to future generations.

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One of the most interesting jazz arrivals in recent years has been the emergence of South Asian guitarist Rez Abbasi, pianist Vijay Iyer and saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa.

All three are truly jazz musicians of the highest order, but they also draw upon their cultural heritage as South Asians (Abbasi is Pakistani and the other two are Indian) to develop their individual visions of jazz.

Abbasi's brand-new album, Things to Come, features the trio as well as bassist Johannes Weidenmueller and drummer Dan Weiss. With Mahanthappa winning a Guggenheim fellowship and Iyer well established as a bandleader and collaborator, Abbasi may not quite have the profile outside New York of the other two, but the strength of his work is undeniable.

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One of the biggest hits of the year ‘Auhun Auhun’ has been lifted from a controversial Pak singer.Naseebo Lal who had to ask for anticipatory bail for this song finally stated that she was forced to sing the song. Nothing with the song however seems vulgar to Indian audience who are happy with the foot tapping number.

But more than the fact that this song has been termed vulgar, we would rather term it stolen by Pritam not ‘inspired’ as he wants to convince the audience. Now, the audio release of the film has been taken by the Indian audience pretty well.

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The cream of Pakistan artistes will showcase their talent in a musical extravaganza titled “Pakistan Dhoom 2009” being organised here on August 16 to raise funds for the internally displaced persons of Swat and Malakand Division.

Those who will feature in the event will including leading singers, Lollywood stars and other stage personalities.

Some of these artists include Rahat Fateh Khan, Shafqat Amanat Ali, Shehzad Roy, Mustafa Zahid, Reema Khan, Meera, Jawad Ahmed, Fakhr Alam, Shakeel Siddiq, Raja Kaasheff, Annie, Najam Shiraz, Humaira Arshad, Raga Boys and Angel Dancers.

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The government of Pakistan has of late come up with its love for Sufi Islam. It recently announced a plan to set up a “Sufi advisory council” to combat ever-growing extremism and fanaticism in the country.

It is a second attempt by the state to promote Sufi values, as under President Musharraf’s rule the “National Sufi Council” was established. It is yet unclear what the seven-member body will actually do to combat extremism in a fragile and sectarian ridden country, apart from giving few seminars or throwing a music festival.

However, a second consecutive attempt to rely on Sufism by the state, under both military and civilian rule, along with increased Western attempts to find a ‘moderate’ partner in Sufi Islam globally, deserves serious attention.

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Zareen Gul sits on the floor of his small recording studio in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and complains that he feels like a criminal for wanting to make music.

A dusty computer and several recording machines are stacked on racks in his two-room Shama Recording Studio in the city’s busy Khyber Bazaar but nothing is switched on.

Gul, who records pop songs in the Pashto language, moved to Peshawar two years ago from his home of Bannu in North West Frontier Province after Islamist militants started bombing music shops and threatened to blow up his studio.Like Afghanistan’s hardline Taliban, the militants see music as un-Islamic.But for Gul, things have not been much better in Peshawar, capital of the province.

Junoon (meaning “obsession” in Urdu and “madness” in Arabic) is one of Pakistan and South Asia’s most popular Rock bands, based out of Karachi, Pakistan, and formed in 1990 by guitarist/songwriter/medical doctor Salman Ahmad. Junoon is considered to be one of the most successful bands in the history of music in South Asia. It basically comes in the genre of Sufi rock. At the time, Junoon consisted of two other members: Ali Azmat on vocals and Nusrat Hussain on keyboards.
Chale The Saath Saath
Yaaro Yehi Dosti Hai
Husan Walo
iltija
Jazba-e-Junoon
Khoeey Aankhein
Mein Kaun Hoon
Mein Ne Kabhi
Mera Mahi
National Anthem
Rooh Ki Pyaas
Saeein Tu Hi

Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (October 13, 1948 - August 16, 1997), a world-renowned Pakistani musician, was primarily a singer of Qawwali, the devotional music of the Sufis, a mystical offshoot of Islam. Ustad Nusrat is credited with taking this traditional musical art form to an international level and creating a new generation of Qawwali lovers both in Pakistan and around the world.Traditionally, Qawwali has been a family business. Nusrat’s family (originally from Afghanistan) has an unbroken tradition of performing qawwali for the last 600 years. Among other honorary titles bestowed upon him, Nusrat was called Shahenshah-e-Qawwali, meaning The Emperor of Qawwals.

Life and career
Nusrat was born in Faisalabad, Punjab on October 13, 1948 to Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, a distinguished musicologist, vocalist, instrumentalist, and skilled Qawwali performer. He had one brother, Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan. Initially, his father did not want Nusrat to follow him into the Qawwali business. He had his heart set on Nusrat choosing a much more respectable career path and becoming a doctor, because he felt Qawwali artists had low social status. However, Nusrat showed such an aptitude for, and interest in, Qawwali that his father finally relented and started to train him in the art of Qawwali and he was also taught to sing within the classical framework of Khayal. This training was still incomplete when Ustad Fateh Ali Khan died in 1964 while Nusrat was still in school, and the training was continued by Nusrat’s paternal uncle, Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan. Ten days after his father’s death, Nusrat had a dream where his father came to him and told him to sing, touching his throat. Nusrat woke up singing, and was moved by the dream to decide that he would make Qawwali his career. His first public performance was at his father’s funeral ceremony forty days later. Under the guidance of Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan, he became the group’s leader in 1965 and the group was called Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Mujahid Mubarak Ali Khan & Party. (”Party” is the term used in Qawwali for the supporting members of the group).

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