AAPI’s 9-city musical tour by Talat Aziz

(Chicago, IL: September 20, 2017): Talat Aziz, a popular ghazal singer, playback singer in Bollywood movies, composer, and actor, from Hyderabad, India, is all set to take the United States by storm during his Nine City Musical Tour starting on October 6th in San Antonio, TX. Organized bythe American Association of Physicians of Indian origin (AAPI), the musical tour is being organized across the nation, with CME Seminars for AAPI members and RégionalConférences in Nine Cities across the country. The grand finale of the musical tour will be held on October 28th in Atlanta, GA.

Following the highly successful tour by Shreya Ghoshal and Shankar Mahadevan, benefitting AAPI’s charitable works and local AAPI Chapters, the current tour is being led by the popular world renowned Gazhal singer and troupe. The proceeds from the musical tour is planned to be used for AAPI’s charitable works, benefitting those affected by the hurricane in the states of Texas and Florida, and other projects in India and the United States
The great Ghazal mastero will perform on Wednesday, Oct. 11 2017 in Fresno, CA; Friday, October 13th in Huntsville, AL, Saturday, October 14th in Houston, TX; Sunday, October 15th in Augusta, GA; Friday, October 20th in Columbus, OH; Saturday, October 21st in Chicago, IL; Sunday, October 22nd in St. Louis, MO; Friday, October 27th in South Jersey, NJ; and Saturday, October 28th in Atlanta, GA.
“Many of our industry partners liked this concept where they could get prime time with a few hundred doctors for product promotion/theater, non CME lectures, exhibits, booths,” Dr. Gautam Samadder, President of AAPI, says. “These multi-city mini-seminars and music concerts are a novel concept for education and recreation that will raise funds for the local chapters of AAPI, the national AAPI and the AAPI Charitable Foundation.”

Born in Hyderabad, India, the young Aziz grew in a family of talented artists, organizing Mehfils in their house, inviting artists and poets like Jagjit Singh, JaanNisaar Akhtar to name a few. Influenced by these great artists, Aziz started learning music from an early age and took his initial training in music from Kirana Gharana. He was trained primarily by Ustad Samad Khan and later by UstadFaiyyaz Ahmed Khan from the Kirana Gharana and from Ghazal maestro Mehdi Hassan.

Talat Aziz released his first album in February 1980, under the baton of Jagjit Singh, which was a runaway hit and the ghazals are still favorites of all ghazal lovers. Starting with debut in the Bollywood world in 1981 in the classic film, UmraoJaan, Talat Aziz won national recognition and won chance to sing in hundreds of other Bollywood movies, winning the hearts and souls of millions around the world.

Talat has also composed music for TV serials and has also acted in several of them. As an actor he has acted in several TV serials and in the film ‘Dhun’ directed by Mahesh Bhatt. Recently, Talat Aziz acted in the feature film ‘Fitoor’ produced and released by Disney in 2015 where he played a cameo. He has toured around the world winning laurels from all. In 2015, he toured the U.S. for a special show titled 'The Iconic Tour' in conjunction with Prria Haider Productions in USA, who executed it for six packed concerts all over the U.S. where for the first time he sang Bollywood retro songs with Asha Bhosle ji.

The Seminars and workshops are being led by accomplished faculty of leading Cardiologists, Cardiovascular Surgeons and Psychiatrists. Each of the nine medical-educational-programs is expected to have an audience of 250-400 Physicians, which will be followed by annual gala event and entertainment with over 2,500 audience at each location.

The need to organize the national level campaign is a way towards realizing one of AAPI’s main goals, Dr. Samadder said. “Our primary goal is to educate the public on diseases and their impact on health, AAPI has physicians in almost every city and town of USA. With this extensive network we should be able to spread message on healthcare by following the template plan. We are also exploring the use of social media and phone ‘apps’ as healthy lifestyle tools.”
Dr. Samadder, who assumed charge of this premier ethnic organization representing 100,000 physicians and residents, gave credit to the whole hearted support of AAPI executive committee, hard work of local Chapter members, and God’s blessings in the plan and execution of the Musical Tour around the nation. “Success of credit goes to the entire national organizing committee, AAPI executive committee, Board Of Trustees and AAPI Charitable Foundation members,” he said.

AAPI is a forum to facilitate and enable Indian American Physicians to excel in patient care, teaching and research and to pursue their aspirations in professional and community affairs. For more details on the Nine City Tour and AAPI, please visit: www.aapiusa.org

Talat released many albums like Talat Aziz live, Images A team Come True, Lehren, Ehsaas, Suroor, Saughaat, Tasavvur ( The first video album of ghazals in 1987), Manzil, Storms, Dhadkan, Shahkaar, Mehboob, Khubsoorat, Irshaad, Khushnuma, Caravan e Ghazal in which Sonu Nigam also participated in a duet ‘Qurbatonmeinbhi’ a ghazal written by Ahmed Faraaz.His also recorded an album ‘A Tribute to his Master’ which was recorded in Los Angeles as a tribute to his guru Mehdi Hasan and the tabla accompaniment for this unique album was none other than the great maestro Ustad Tari Khan. This album got a nomination in the best ghazal album category in the prestigious GIMA Global Indian Music Awards.

The singer was the first ghazal artiste to release a ghazal music video of Tasavvur, in 1987 when a video album was not even thought of. He is often seen on the small screen in various roles as a music judge.

Talat Aziz has been singing in concerts for over four decades and has travelled the globe with his sell out performances. On 31st Dec 1999 he was invited by the Prime Minister of India Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee to perform specially for him and his close family at the Taj Garden Retreat KumarakomKerala . He sang a special number written by Janab Nida Fazli for the occasion titled Vrindavan keKrishnKanhaiyya Allah Hoo which was deeply appreciated by everyone specially the PM.

In 2003 he was invited by the King of Morocco Mohd XI to Marrakech as his special guest to celebrate the New Year along with a host of celebrities from around the world including none other than Sir Sean Connery.

In 2007 he was invited by Shri L.K. Advani the deputy PM at that time to sing in Delhi . He sang the famous song from the film ‘Daddy’ which is Shri L.K. Advani’sfavourite.

He celebrated his 25 Years Anniversary with the launch of a special audio and video album at the NCPA Tata auditorium Mumbai where the veritable who’s who of the music industry were present and a special documentary on his life was screened. This documentary featured video bytes from the likes of legends like Mehdi Hasan Lata Mangeshkar Asha Bhosle Ghulam Ali and contemporaries Pankaj Udhas Anup Jalota Hariharan to name a few and was released by Universal Music India as a special commemorative DVD with the audio cd pack of two released by Times Music.

He also curated a Bollywood Electro Music Festival titled Bollyboom for Percept India which was held all over India and the World from November 2013.
In November 2013 he started hosting a special radio show titled Carvaan e Ghazal as an RJ on 92.7 BIG FM which was relayed every Sunday 9 pm to 11 pm nationally in 45 cities all over India. This radio program was about ghazals, ghazal singers, ghazal lovers ghazals in films and was in the top 3 programs on the channel. It was a weekly and received an amazing response. It also won the most prestigious Radio Award called the IRF India Radio Forum Awards for the best Hindi non breakfast radio show on the 31st of May 2014. He had stalwarts like Ghulam Ali Saheb Gulzar Saheb Nida Fazli Saheb Sonu Nigam Asha Bhosleji Chitra Singh and friends like Pankaj Udhas Anup Jalota Hariharan amongst a host of celebrities who came to the show at his invitation and graced it with their presence. This show got over in Oct 2015 although there was and is still a lot of demand for it.

In fact the great doyen Dilip Kumar Saheb was so impressed by this show that SairaBano ji invited Talat and his wife Bina to their home as Dilip Kumar Saheb a fan of Talat wanted to congratulate him in person
In the month of Aug and September 2015 he toured the U.S. for a special show titled ‘The Iconic Tour’ conceived by Bina Aziz in conjunction with Prria Haider Productions in USA who executed it for six packed concerts all over the U.S. where for the first time he sang Bollywood retro songs with Asha Bhosle ji. The highlight of this tour was that all the concerts were held at very prestigious venues like the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, the Grand Sears Arena in Chicago The Allen Center in Dallas The Arena Theatre in Houston and with a grand Finale at the New Jersey Performing Arts Centre NJPAC and they were sold out completely and set a standard of excellence. For the first time high end graphics were specially conceptualised& designed by Bina Aziz with VJ Tarang which were programmed for each track individually adding to the great ambience and was highly appreciated by the audience.

In Feb 2016 he released a ghazal single titled ‘Wo Shaam’ the first digital ghazal audio and video release and it reached more that 600,000 people in a time frame of two weeks through the social Media like Facebook.

He also recorded two tracks with young upcoming artists like Piyush Shankar ,Teesha Nigam for the new year 2017 titled “Meri Dua- A prayer’ and another song with another talented upcoming singer Siddharth Slathia for Valentine’s Day 2017. These songs were written composed and sung by him in collaboration with youngsters . Released worldwide on Facebook of all music lovers.

He is currently going to tour the US again in Sep/Oct 2017 titled ‘Dil Se’ where he will be performing in nine cities.

Talat has released many albums. He is equally versatile while singing a popular Sufi number like “Damadam mast Kalandar” or the soul stirring rendition of “AainaMujhse Meri” from the film Daddy. Between 1979 and 1984 he was the top artist recording for Music India Company. In 1984, he joined HMV, now Saregama Music the giant recording company. He also worked with Venus Records for a brief period when he released a number of hit albums