Washington Post, January 13, page: C-05
Niazi Brothers
Last summer's Smithsonian Folklife Festival presented dozens of musical
virtuosos from the Near and Far East,
but under less than ideal circumstances for careful listening. Saturday night at
the Freer Gallery, however, one of
the festival's acts was able to perform at length in a less distracting venue.
Accompanying themselves on
harmoniums, Pakistan's Niazi Brothers sang Sufi poems and Punjabi folk standards
for more than three hours.
The melodies in the first part of the program were derived from classical ragas,
although the music's structures
and rhythms were less complex. Javaid and Babar Niazi sang in rich, sweet tones
but without the intricate
interplay of classical Indian music or the call-and-response vocals of larger
groups that perform qawwali, Sufi
songs of devotion. One of the lyrics was by Guru Gobind Singh, a 17th-century
Sikh saint; during that song,
many turbaned men came forward to place monetary offerings on the stage.
After the intermission, the Niazis sang folk material, which was generally
livelier and more dance-oriented. An
excerpt from "Hir Ranjha," an 18th-century epic poem, was hushed and
rhythmically free, but most of the songs
were thumping and ecstatic, with melismatic vocal lines and singalong choruses.
Throughout the concert, the brothers were joined by two excellent U.S.-based
Indian musicians, tabla player
Haroon Alam and banjo player Mohammed Bashir. (Bashir's banjo is not the
instrument commonly known to
Americans, but a souped-up Punjabi folk instrument that resembled a cross
between a sitar, a dobro and an
autoharp.) Neither Alam nor Bashir had performed with the Niazis before, but
that was never evident in their
deft playing.