The Brooklyn Qawwali Party: Mann Kunto Maula – Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Meets Jazz

Adil Najam

The quality of this particular recording is not the best and for some readers it may star off as sounding too much like a shaadi band baaja routine. But stick with it and maybe it will grow on you too the way it did on me.

As you may have guessed by now, it is a jazz rendition of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s Mann Kunto Maula by the Booklyn Qawalli Party (BQP), a group formed by “non-desi Brooklynites” that is really a tribute to the genius of the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and reinterprets his master pieces in their own unique, jazz-infused style.

Here (below) is the first part of the rendition above (in both cases, I fine the second half of the video far more compelling than the first):

I had first written about the BQP back in 2006 – the band had started off as “Brian’s Qawalli Party” but turned into the “Brooklyn Qawalli Party.” The recording I had found then (which I think were nicer than what is now on Youtube) have since become unavailable so I have updated that post with newer YouTube recordings in addition to this one, which do have the benefit of also giving us a sense of the performance. Unfortunately, it seems they have not added new work (or I did not find it), but coming back to it after some years, I find this as fascinating and compelling as I did the first time.

Here is a bit more about them. Enjoy!