Gazi Khan

It’s a thrill to watch Gazi Khan play Khartal in perfect rhythm with dholak. The way he creates complex percussion sounds with the four wooden pieces is admirable. He is not only an expert Khartal player, but also an exceptional Sufi Vocalist, and renders authentic folk ragas. His ability to customize and design stage performances is a feather in his cap. He has traveled to all the countries of Europe, Asia and America and participated in all well-known folk festivals. He has accompanied with renowned rhythm instrument players like Zakir Hussain, A. R. Rehman etc.
He hails from a small village known as Barna in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan. He has been doing stage performances all over the country since he was a small child. Gazi started his journey at a very young and till now he has achieved so much in the journey. He has represented twice in Festival of India both in Japan and France in 1988 and 1995, respectively. The journey of international performances that he started in 1988 from Japan is just unstoppable since then. Currently, he is working with the world-renowned Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt on a group called Desert Slide. He has also worked with famous and big names like Allen Webber in 1992, has been associated with Rajiv Sethi since 1993, and even did a show with Ravi Shanker and Ravi Menon known as From Sitar to Guitar in 1994 in Royal Circus Theatre, United Kingdom. He also got a chance to work with Amjad Ali back in the 1990s’.

He sings wonderfully but his basic and expertise lie in Khartaal. He loves to do jugalbandi with various diff instruments. When it comes to fusion he respects it and insists on doing it in the right way such that the integrity of any of the instrument is not crossed over. HE wants to do all that he can to preserve his folk culture and to make a start for the same he has registered an institute known as Pehchan Folk Music Institute in his village, for identification of Manganiyaars, their culture folk.
The institute has 20 rooms each of them kept in the name folk raags like saourath, khamaichi, etc. He has been doing research also parallel to his music for more exposure in his genre of folk music
Highly obliges Komal Kothari for bringing him in the light and uplift them. He has been managing all the artists since class 8th, Speaks more than 20+ languages and has learned on his own ease in abroad.
Gazi Khan wants to bring in all the small children of his community to his institute and impart their culture to them. He is already giving his heritage of folk music to his children. His son Sartaj Khan,14, is a renowned child artist and known for his fame from the song “Bapu Sehat ke Liye” of movie Dangal. He dreams of establishing Rajasthani folk music as a Gharana and is working in all his power to make it happen.