Alim Qasimov - Biography
By Eric Brightwell
Alim Qasimov is an Azeri musician who performs an innovative version of mugham (the complex traditional classical music of Azerbaijan) and ashiq, popular Turkic bardic songs. He is often accompanied by his daughter, Fargana and the Alim Qasimov Ensemble.
Alim was born to a poor family in 1957 in a Nobur, Azerbaijan, where he worked, from an early age, with his parents on a Soviet commune. Alim’s father was an amateur singer who exposed Alim to music as a child. Alim displayed prodigious musical talent at a young age. His first instrument was a homemade drum, whose skin came from the stomach of a goat his father slaughtered. Alim first played and sang at local religious events before enrolling in the Musiki Mektebi state music school in Baku when he was 21. In the capital, Qasimov soon became a renowned musician, winning his first mugham competition, the national Jabbar Garyaghdioghlu Singing Competition, in 1983.
As Soviet influence decreased in the republic, Qasimov’s popularity grew and he won awards at the 1983 and 1987 UNESCO Symposia on Traditional and Modern Art of Central Asian and Asian Countries. In 1989, he formed a group with Malik Mansurov on tar and Eshan Mansurov on kamanche. After attending a performance by renowned Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Qasimov broadened his musical expression beyond his Central Asian roots, revolutionizing mugham as a result and creating short-lived controversy at the same time. Audiences soon came around to his innovations and in 1993 he was named “People's Artist of Azerbaijan.” Throughout the ‘90s, his international fame spread and Qasimov performed in Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Iran, Spain, the UK and the US. A meeting with Jeff Buckley at a classical music even in France led to a collaboration in 1995, “What Will You Say,” included on his Live à l'Olympia.
Qasimov’s first international release was with the Mansurov brothers, Azerbaidjan (1996- Ocora France) which they followed with Azerbaidjan – L’arte de Mugham (1998- Ocora France). In 1999, Qasimov released The Mugham of Azerbaidjan (1999-(unknown label)) and was named “one of the 20th century’s greatest singers” by Folk Roots and awarded the international IMC/UNESCO Music Prize .
On three records, Qasimov has been joined by his daughter Fargana (often also anglicized as “Ferghana”), born to his wife, Tamilla Aslanova, in 1980. At sixteen, Fargana began singing with her father. At seventeen she decided to pursue music as a career. When she was twenty, after establishing herself as a singer in her own right, she joined her father’s ensemble. Whereas most mugham is performed by a single vocalist, Alim and Fargana often finish each other’s phrases, sometimes overlap, and create an arrestingly interplay. Her first recording with the Alim Qasimov Ensemble was Legendary Art of Mugham (1997- Network Germany). As a duo, they released Love's Deep Ocean (1999- Network Germany) and Music of Central Asia, Vol. 6: Alim and Fargana Qasimov - Spiritual Music of Azerbaijan (2007- Smithsonian Folkways).
