Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Supreme Collection, Vol. 1 CD

2-CD;Rare Classic Trad.Record. From 1988

Personnel includes: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (vocals).
Includes liner notes by Jeff Buckley.
Personnel: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (vocals).
Liner Note Author: Jeff Buckley.
Photographer: Jack Vartoogian.
The devotional music of Sufi Muslims is hypnotically beautiful, blending tabla, harmonium and voice in a heady, mystical brew. Certainly no one delivered it with more fire and intensity than the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. While his previous efforts with Michael Brook may be more accessible to Western audiences, this collection of selected recordings offers an excellent introduction to his music. You also get liner notes by the late Jeff Buckley, which place Nusrat at the center of the mystical universe. ~ Tim Sheridan
The musical world mourned the passing of this great Pakistani musical legend, who died on August 16, 1997 in London. Nusrat was perhaps the best-known and greatest performer of Qawwali, a hypnotic, extremely emotional, often-riveting musical style. Qawwali is the devotional music of the Sufi sect of Islam. It is actually supposed to recreate, with sound, the bursts of enlightenment that accompany a message from the Beloved (Allah).
Admirer Peter Gabriel once compared the singer's depth of vocal feeling to Otis Redding's. The comparison is fitting indeed. Nusrat possessed an incredibly powerful tenor voice, and that fact is reiterated over and over on this two-disc compilation. Intense, repetitive; adjectives really don't do this singular music justice. Singers take turns in rounds, clapping hands, raising, then lowering their voices, collecting them above the group as one towering instrument. Highly recommended, and, unfortunately, a reminder of a great loss.

Spin (9/99, p.134) - Ranked #30 in Spin Magazine's "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s."
Entertainment Weekly (8/22-8/29/97, p.135) - "...COLLECTION is more primer than definitive statement: Khan's lengthy improvisational and call-and-response passages, while brilliant, are less electrifying than on many of his live albums. Divine, yes. Supreme, perhaps not." - Rating: B
JazzTimes (12/97, p.139) - "...Khan delivers his trademarked, nimble phrasings and interacts with his ensemble in ways that follow a lineage to classical Indian music and quivers with that sort of universal soulfulness that he commanded..."