Eddie Vedder’s Soul Mate

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s music sneaks up on you.

His concerts begin innocently enough, with the Pakistani singer seated cross-legged on a carpet--a corpulent, amiable figure surrounded by an ensemble of chorus singers, drummers, harmoniums and stringed instruments.

The first sound is usually a drone-like undercurrent, followed by soft, rhythmic percussion. Khan’s warm and flexible voice eases into a quiet, chanting melody, gradually gathering intensity. As the energy and the passion mount, his vocal lines soar up into swirling, ever more complex melodies, firmly supported by propulsive hand claps and urgent drumming.

Almost before realizing what is happening, the audience--despite its unfamiliarity with the verbal messages of Khan’s devotional songs--is quickly swept up in the emotional fervor of the music.

His capacity to create such instant rapture aside, Khan seems an unlikely candidate, even in the colorful arena of world music, for the stardom he has recently begun to experience.

He does not, for one thing, fit the familiar Western mold of a charismatic performer. His large, imposing presence has been likened, variously, to something between a smiling Buddha and a tuneful Jabba the Hutt.

Nor is his singing, which is rooted in an ancient, melodically ornamental Sufi vocal style called qawwali, the stuff of contemporary pop.

Khan himself chooses to view his growing international prominence from a somewhat different perspective. Reached by telephone at his home in Pakistan via an interpreter, he simply explains, “In order to become an effective qawwali singer, one must sing with the depth of his heart.”

His recordings with guitarist Michael Brook--their latest album, “Night Song” on the Real World label, was released in late February--place qawwali music in a framework of Brooks’ ambient soundscapes. Later this summer, Real World will issue a CD of Khan’s songs in new dance remixes.

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To some observers, this kind of juxtaposition of ancient and traditional music within contemporary pop settings distorts centuries-old cultural heritages.

Khan, however, has no problem with such combinations. “The mixing of qawwali with popular music,” he says, “does not make any difference as long as it is a known religious song.”

He further underscores his faith in the fundamental generative powers of the music by noting that, although he is not a member of Islam’s mystical Sufi sect, “one does not have to be a Sufi to be a qawwali singer. But one must be of good character, because it is a pure music.”

Qawwali (which means “utterance”) consists of devotional songs, usually sung in Urdu, Punjabi or Persian. It is inspirational and mystic, intended to express a belief in music and poetry as pathways to achieve a state of enlightenment--in effect, a “stateless state.”

“The significance of the words and the music are very important when we are singing and performing among people who understand the language. And we emphasize more the poetry,” Khan says. “But when we are performing among people who don’t understand the language, we try to use the power of the rhythm with the lyrics to convey the message.”

To Western ears, qawwali resembles a blending of Khan’s indefinable singing with the sounds of classical Indian ragas (think Ravi Shankar) and the hypnotic rhythms one might imagine as accompaniment for whirling dervishes. (The latter is not such a far-off association, in fact, since the spinning Sufi dervish dances are a visual and physical corollary to the soaring melodic spirals of qawwali singing.)

But there is no denying the impact of Khan’s from-the-heart vocal performances, which have roused Western listeners to something approaching religious ecstasy in sold-out programs at venues as varied as L.A.’s House of Blues and New York’s Town Hall.

Michael Jackson, Sting, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel and U2 are reportedly his fans, and his song “Mustt Mustt,” with which he usually closes his shows, was a pop chart hit in Asia. On April 28, he will make a rare television appearance on the “VH1 Honors” at the Universal Amphitheatre.

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The visibility of Khan’s music has increased dramatically since its inclusion in the soundtrack of the film “Dead Man Walking.” Although he has created music for other pictures--”The Last Temptation of Christ” and “Natural Born Killers” among them--his duets with Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder for “Dead Man Walking”--”The Face of Love” and “The Long Road”--have clearly brought his music to the notice of a far wider audience.

How does a Pakistani singer’s music wind up in a movie about capital punishment in America?

“I wasn’t aware of him before the picture,” explains Dave Robbins, director Tim Robbins’ brother and the film’s score composer and musical director.

“We tried things like gospel and Cajun music and other religious music. But any of the local stuff kind of narrowed everything down for us. It made it too regional, too specific. We needed something that would give us a more universal feel. And the nonverbal, uplifting chants of Nusrat were absolutely perfect. They suggested spirituality, yet they weren’t overt, in the sense of being like a Catholic nun’s music.”

Even more unusual is the inclusion of the duets by Khan and Vedder.

“When we told Eddie that Nusrat was going to be in the studio,” Robbins continues, “Eddie said, ‘I’ve been a fan of his for years, I’ve seen all his concerts in Seattle--I’m there!’ So he came.

“We basically sat around in a circle on pillows--me, [guitarist] Ry Cooder, Eddie Vedder, Nusrat and the rest of his party. We worked it out, did it in one take, and that basically became ‘The Face of Love,’ which we open the picture with. I was on a cloud for weeks after that. It was a truly magical experience.”

Following the acclaimed “companion” album ‘Dead Man Walking,” an album of music from the movie, “Dead Man Walking, the Score,” is scheduled for release on Columbia this week. (See review page 71.) It features unedited versions of the Khan-Vedder collaborations, as well as the Khan cues that didn’t make it into the final soundtrack.

For Khan, who has less to say verbally than he does with his music, the primary concern is always the sound and the quality of the creative expression, rather than any particular characteristic of style. The get-together with Vedder took place at Dave Robbins’ urging, but Khan wanted to hear how their voices sounded together.

“When I was asked to sing in the film,” he says, “I was requested to work together with Eddie. So we rehearsed together and it worked very well. Therefore, I decided to do a duet with him.”

Asked about other singers he might consider as musical partners, Khan first mentions Bjork, then turns to jazz.

“There are similarities between jazz and qawwali,” he says. “I would like to work with a good jazz singer when I find somebody of a good caliber and a sound pitch which matches mine.”

Khan, born in 1948 in Faisalabad into a family with a 600-year history in the performance of the music, came to qawwali almost inevitably. He studied classical forms of qawwali with his father, Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, and intended to pursue a career in medicine. But when his father died in 1964, his goals quickly changed.

“I performed for the first time 40 days after the death of my father,” Khan says. “All the best, acclaimed singers were there together, and they all appreciated my talent. They said, ‘This child has talent.’ ”

A few years later, he began singing with his father’s oldest brothers, both eminent qawwali artists, and by 1971 he had established himself as a major qawwal in his own right. More recently, he has been described by his devotees as “Shahen-sha-e-qawwali,” the king of kings, the brightest shining star of qawwali.

For Khan, whose serene and confident composure is the energy center of his euphoric performances, his potential crossover stardom is less meaningful than the opportunities it provides for the wider dissemination of his qawwali.

“My music,” he says, “gives the message of peace and love. When I sing, I sing with the depth of my heart. And, because this is a pure form of music, it can be passed down to generations. The way it is performed, it breaks all barriers, and no one has difficulty understanding it.”