Monday, October 12, 2009

Ghulam Ali ~ The Ghazal Maestro


This is my tribute to the ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali with love. The man behind timeless classic ghazals like "Chupke chupke..", "Hungama hai kyon barpa...", "Kal chaudhavi ki raat thi..", "Dil me ek laher si", "Dukh ki laher ne..", "Karoo na yaad magar..", and so many other unforgettable ones. There is not much information available about him on the net, hence I decided to make a micro-site of my own dedicated to him. Needless to say, I am an ardent fan of his. I simply love his baritone yet mellifluous voice, his way of rendering ghazals, and his mesmerizing elan. There are many well known, respected ghazal singers, but his style is unique and inimitable. His in-depth knowledge of classical music shows in his singing making his music richer, and those who could enjoy the beauty of ghazals and thumari will find him captivating. Unlike many others, his singing style is not song-alike, it's not simple, it is as graceful as the this legend is. His singing grows on you, the more you listen to him, the more you will like him.

Ghulam Ali originates from Pakistan, and has sung over the years in various countries in many live concerts. Many international music labels have produced his albums in various forms. He has learnt his singing from Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and also from Ustad Barkat Ali Khan. Over the years he has sung many ghazals, nazm, thumaris with equal elegance. He has sung beautiful creations of many shaayars (poet/lyricist) from India and Pakistan from older and younger generation. He has sung creations of past legends like Mirza Ghalib, Aamir Khusro, current shaayars such as Ahmed Faraz, Qateel Shifai, Farhat Shahzad and many many more, and now he has also sung ghazals of famous Indian poet Gulzar in his new album Visaal. He has also produced an album Miraz-E-Ghazal with famous Indian singer Asha Bhosale. His voice only sounds better as he grows older. Alas, there are not many new shaayars writing good poetry for him to sing.

Here, I have tried to compile a list of many of his ghazals and their lyricists. You can look for all this information here. The list of this ghazals is far from complete, but I will try to make is as complete as possible. Not many of his albums mention name of the lyricist with the ghazals, and that is the main problem while compiling the list. I have put this information in a database for easier manipulation, and with server side support it is possible to browse through it very easily. You'll be able to sort it based on the ghazal title and lyricist name. You can list all the ghazals penned by a particular lyricist, you can search the database for a particular ghazal or a lyricist. Of course, the list will grow bigger with time and I'll also try to add more information to this micro-site of mine as time permits.
I'd love to hear from you as to what else you would like to see here, also it would be great if you could send me more ghazals with their lyricist, album etc. if they are not included in the list already. You can also send your comments and suggestion to me, or write it in the guestbook.

19 September 2007 I have modified database of Ghulam Ali ghazals and it now contains links to his ghazal lyrics & videos whenever they are available. I have also added those links to lyrics and videos for few ghazals and I am planning to add more such links to the database slowly. I am hoping to make it the most exhaustive & complete collection of Ghulam Ali ghazals.

No comments:

Post a Comment