MUSIC

Colston Hall 2, Bristol (Wed 5 Oct) Someone obviously got the word out in all the right places, because Hall 2 is packed out for this gig – the first in an ongoing collaboration between Colston Hall and the Asian Arts Agency. It’s a smart choice of artist, too – a truly venerable performer of great cultural and musical stature who has drawn in several generations of the South Asian community in droves. When his five black-clad musicians arrive to sit across the back of the stage there’s a surge of anticipation, but when the man himself appears, traditional tunic spangled with mirrors and his three-stringed tumbi strung with flower garlands, it’s electrifying.

The first number is well chosen – ‘Allah Hoo’, one of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s regular crowd pleasers – and highlights the difference between the ornate classical gymnastics of that great Qwali singer and Zahoor’s more direct and folky style. His voice has a blues rasp, contrasting with his crooning ‘hoo’ and there’s an earnest honesty to his admittedly smooth performance. Smacking his steeled finger onto the tumba strings, he’s as much the rhythmic driver as the three percussionists behind (though the table player is very impressive), the instrumental breaks coming from harmonium and flute while the singer spins in the Sufi manner albeit stiffly – he’s at least 75 years old, I remember.

The audience becomes more and more animated (in a good way), raised wrists rotating in appreciation, shouted encouragement and even people coming to the stage to give him banknotes between songs. The music is consistently good, each song preceded by a loose introductory duet of voice and flute until that steel finger kicks a rhythm and the drummers catch it on cue. The songs are impassioned and, I thought, spiritual (though one lyric causes an amount of sniggering around the room). In what was supposed to be the last number there’s some dissent with the flute player who seemed to have gone out of tune and he walks off stage and doesn’t return for either of the two encores (apparently an unprecedented bonus reflecting the singer’s pleasure at the reception he’s had), but the septuagenarian Zahoor remains energetically spry to the last notes. He even stays around so that half the audience can have their photo taken with him, a fitting tribute to such a great performer. (Tony Benjamin)

Copyright Tony Benjamin 2011