Khan Sought to Spread Love, Peace in Song
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Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was a missionary. Not a proselytizing promoter of a particular spiritual view of the world; not even an outright spokesman for the Sufi religion in which he was raised.
Khan’s mission, in his own words, was to spread “a message of peace and love by singing from the depth of my heart.” And he did so with a great passion.
Khan was the first and most successful performer to bring the Sufi devotional music known as qawwali to the West. This ecstatic form of singing, with its extended, soaring vocals, its centuries-old poetry and its trance-invoking performances, seemed an extraordinarily unlikely music to achieve popularity with Western audiences.
But Khan, who died of cardiac arrest Saturday in London, made the breakthrough, his music eliminating boundaries of space and time, linking his audiences together in a creative devotional that transcended language, attitude and culture.
Although the Pakistani singer was revered in his own country, where he was described by his devotees as Shahen-sha-e-qawwali (the king of kings, the brightest shining star of qawwali), his first widespread visibility in the West was associated with his performance on the soundtrack of the 1995 film “Dead Man Walking.”
Khan’s real influence, however, came--with Western audiences, as it did with his Pakistani followers--through his live appearances. His performances at the House of Blues and Universal Amphitheatre last year were typical.
Khan’s imposing presence, which was likened variously to a combination of a smiling Buddha and a tuneful Jabba the Hut, did not remotely fit the familiar Western mold of a charismatic performer. But once his ensemble of chorus singers, drummers, harmoniums and stringed instruments began producing hypnotic, drone-like sounds, underpinned by soft, rhythmic percussion, a collective emotional connection began to fill the room.
And when Khan’s warm and flexible voice eased into his chant-like melodies, slowly gathering intensity, building energy as he soared into ever more complex melodies, the audience was quickly swept up in the emotional fervor of the music.
Khan’s passing, at a relatively youthful 49 (some sources say 48), deprives the world of one of its great artists. But the portals he opened between East and West will remain via the music of at least two talented members of his own family. His nephew Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and cousin Ustad Badar Ali Khan, who follow closely in his footsteps, will begin a series of U.S. appearances Aug. 31 at the Greek Theatre.
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