Nosho pak qawali
And now, he says, his friends list on Facebook has increased from 1,500 to 2,800. There was no nervousness, Ali says, but excitement. It was the first time they were experimenting with two tablas in a song. Xulfi wanted a qawwali touch to ‘Tere Jeya Hor Disda’ so added him in the line-up with the other tabla player, Asif Ali. Then I met Xulfi bhai for the first time and got confused as to what I should do. Zeeshan called a month later to tell me we had to jam. The vocalist of the song he played in Basement had been his classmate, who helped him get in. He says he wishes to learn something from each of these great singers. His favourites are Ustad Salamat Ali Khan, Ustad Ameer Ali Khan, Ustad Baray Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Barkat Ali Khan, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasiya, Ustad Bismillah Khan, Roshan Ara Begum, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Zahida Parveen. But my mother motivated me to resume.”Īli is a keen listener of classical music. I was in a shock because it all happened so suddenly. I forgot about music and stopped playing for at least four months. I’m the eldest child and had a responsibility towards my family. Zain with Asif, the other tabla player in Necafe Basement Season 4Īli’s life suddenly took a turn when his father suddenly passed away two years ago. He played the tabla at his younger brother’s birthday in front of several respected musicians of the time when his grandfather had thrown a huge party. That’s when he let me pursue music and now I intend to continue it.”Īli’s first break was with his maternal uncle, who is a singer/composer/music director. His friend told him he loved my performance.
They changed their mind when Ali's father saw him perform "at an event where neither of us knew the other was coming.
My parents wanted me to study before that.” Five years later, I got a tabla but only found a teacher when I was 12-13 years old. I started playing music on utensils when I was four years old. “My uncle told me when he used to listen to qawwalis when I was a few months old, I would move with the beat. With a lineage like this, it's no surprise that Ali was musical from birth. His late father was a government employee, and was drawn to music for spiritual reasons: he became a zakir, wrote qaseeday (poems) and composed music for them. They connected through Manzoor Santu Qawwal and the two spent 18 years performing together till Khan’s death after which his grandfather played with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan for some time. His grandfather, who lived in Sharaqpur, met NFAK in Faisalabad and with him moved to Lahore in around 1979. He belongs to an illustrious centuries-old gharana of qawwals who used to play at Nosho Pak shrine. Ali played the tabla in ‘Teray Jeya Hor Disda’, the Basement version of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s timeless qawwali.