FAREED HAQUE

Fareed Haque (born 1963) is a fusion guitar virtuoso of Pakistani and Chilean descent.

He is renowned for bringing classical and jazz styles to his jam band collaborations, including, but not limited to, those with Paquito D'Rivera, Dave Holland, Sting, Joe Henderson, Lester Bowie, Arturo Sandoval, Robert Walter, Keller Williams, Medeski, Martin and Wood, Kahil el Zabar, Defunckt, Ramsey Lewis, Gabe Noel and more recently with George Brooks on "Summit" and Garaj Mahal.

Haque received the 'Most Valuable Player' award at the 2002 High Sierra Music Festival.

He is now a professor of Jazz and Classical Guitar Studies at Northern Illinois University. Fareed's notable students include Bradley Fish.

Discography

Voices Rising (1988)
The Poet (1988)
Manresa (1989)
Sacred Addiction (1993)
Opaque (1995)
Déjà Vu (1996)
Macedonian Blues (2001)

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From Child To Professor

There are guitar players, and then there are guitar players. Fareed Haque is of the later category, a virtuoso. Fareed has busted onto the scene with a fury, tearing up venues all over the country. The depth of this individual travels far beyond his guitar playing. He is a tenured professor, a husband, and not only kills it on the six string; but plays acoustic, electric, the sitar, transcribes classical music, and even plays a hybrid guitar/sitar. So to simply call Fareed a guitar player would be a grave injustice. His band Garaj Mahal has caused quite a stir over the past year, but what is really piquing my interest as of late, is his older, more intimate collaboration, The Fareed Haque Group. Equipped with DJ's and tablas, the FHG is being described as a "tantric meditation." In our candid conversation Fareed enlightened me on topics from Bhangra, to why women dig the Fareed Haque Band. We had such an interesting interaction that it's being brought to you in two parts, so you don't have to miss a beat. Here is part one, enjoy, and keep and eye out for part two.

Kayceman: I wanted to get a little background info on you first. Where were you born? 

Fareed: Born here in Chicago.

Kayceman: I read that you had done a great deal of traveling as a child,

Fareed: Absolutely, plenty as an adult too, but a lot as a child. When I was 6 months I spent my first half-year in Pakistan, and then I came home for about less than a year and went to Chile for a while.

And that’s where your parents are from right?

Right, Chile.

Do you feel that had a lot of influence on your musical development, traveling so much?

Ya, It’s kind of funny because I spent the first half of my career playing with all these Latin bands, and now I’m playing a lot of music that’s influenced by the music of India and Pakistan. And if I look at the record collection my parents have, especially what they’ve had since I was a kid it’s all Indian and South American music. So as much as I might want to feel that I’m my own man, and I created myself, and all that, I think we’re pretty much a product of our environment. 

Fareed with Goran Ivanovic

I agree one hundred percent. 

No matter how hard I try to do something else I’m always going to be half Pakistani, and half Chilean. 

When did you start playing guitar?

I started playing piano when I was 8 or 9, and began to play guitar when I was about 11, when my voice was changing, and I started to get hair on my upper lip, and all that. So I’m sure there was some social influence too.

Definitely, everyone wants to be a guitar player right?

Totally, I think the first song I ever learned was "Stairway to Heaven." In fact I remember now, I was playing in a Fog Hat cover band, and we actually were going to play "Stairway to Heaven," and I was the piano player in the band, and the guitar player couldn’t play it, so I picked up the guitar and played it. And that was the start.

And then through out high school, and then a jazz scholarship lead you to North Texas, is that correct?

Right.

And then I’m curious, I also read that you got more involved with classical guitar and that lead you to Northwestern, is that all correct information?

Absolutely. I spent one year at North Texas and completed most of their guitar classes, and was kind of done with whatever classes that were available to me, and then it was a matter of, well if there aren’t any more guitar classes for me to take, what am I doing in Texas, when I could be in the birth place of jazz (Chicago), or one of the birth places of jazz. So I ended up with a little scholarship to go to Northwestern to study classical, and just played around the city as much as I could. 

That’s something else I was curious about. When you were through with college what exactly did you do for your musical career?

Well, when I was a sophomore in Chicago I was already starting to sit in at as many places as I could, and play with as many people as I could, and I met up with Howard Levy, from Bela Fleck and The Flecktones. And Howard and I spent a lot of time playing together, and he hooked me up with Paquito D'Rivera’s group and by the end of my junior year and my senior year in college I was pretty much already starting to head out on the road. So by the time I graduated from college, I wasn’t even at my graduation I was off somewhere playing, I was already out doing it. That’s kind of why as a teacher I try to encourage people to have a reality meter, if they’re not out already hustling trying to make a career happen, it’s very hard to try to jump start it from scratch, when you graduate. At that point your 20, 21, 22 years old, old news.

What and when was the first group you put together yourself?

Well I started playing with Paquito, and I would always put together little gigs in local clubs in Chicago, because club owners would ask me, “Why don’t you bring your own band?” So I would just play with some students from college, or friends of mine. But eventually after a few years of Paquito, I met up with Christine Reed, who at the time was the president of Pangea Records, a label founded by Sting. And she heard me playing with Paquito and asked me to please send her a tape or a demo of some kind. So at that moment I had to kind of make some decisions about what my musical tastes were, and how I wanted to represent myself, in fifteen short minutes. So I went into the studio and did a little recording of three or four of my tunes featuring me playing mostly acoustic classical guitar, and Sting heard it and signed me to Pangea for a couple of records. Through that time I was mostly considered an acoustic guitar player. I played electric here and there, but I was pretty much devoted to the acoustic. So it’s only been the past couple years that I’ve been playing more electric, and kind of getting known as someone who can play a fair amount of electric.

I’m trying to get a time line going in my head here, so when did Garaj Mahal and the Fareed Haque Group come to be?

Well the Fareed Haque Group started as early as 1988 when I was first signed to Sting’s label. And I think I had met Jonathan Paul as early as the Opaque record, which I believe was '94 or '95, my second Blue Note record, and then Joe Bianco, my drummer, I met right around the time of my Déjà vu album, a little before, maybe a year before. Then I started working more and more with Tabla and Eric Levy, one of my students, form Northern Illinois. And we became kind of a family, and still are a good, strong musical unit, a lot of history, a lot of crazy gigs, and a lot of crazy after gig parties. And then I started working with Garaj about a little more than a year ago, and we were looking for a keyboard player that would complement the band, and Eric came up. So it’s been kind of a natural progression from playing with my band, and now playing also with Garaj Mahal. 

The BBQ master

In your mind are you putting more effort toward one collaboration or the other?

Not really, I mean right now Garaj Mahal is working a lot, and it’s a pretty popular group. So I’m just trying to balance Fareed Haque Group with Garaj Mahal. And partly, maybe, Garaj Mahal is a little more commercial, not in a bad way, in a fun way. You know there is some singing, and antics on stage; we play some funky songs about poodles, and all kinds of fun things. The Fareed Haque Group is a little more of a groove band. We have this indo-funk kind of groove going. We have a DJ spinning with us, and tablas playing with us. So it’s definitely more of a deep trance like groove. When you go to a Fareed gig, your going to get 3 or 4 hours of non-stop high intensity trance like music. People just kind of start going kind of kooky. 

I can’t wait to see it.

It’s really pretty intense.

Ya I’ve been listening to a little bit of it, and it sounds right up my ally.

Ya it’s a good sound, and what you have isn’t even mixed yet, we don’t even have the DJ stuff on there yet. 

That’s something I’m really interested in, what’s the DJ’s name?

DJ Cappo.

I read somewhere, DJ Frontline?

Ya, I’m not sure if that’s his official name, I think there might be a copyright issue.

Same gentleman?

Ya, same guy. 

Now does he actually spin while you guys are playing?

Oh, absolutely. Have you ever listened to Bhangra?

No.

Bhangra is already kind of historically a movement of mixing DJ and remixes with Indian and Pakistani movie music. It’s a big movement in Britain and England, and Toronto where there are big Indo-Pakistani communities. So having the tabla and the sitar, and the DJ has always been, in recent history, pretty hip among the South Asian community. So in a way, we are kind of doing like . . . Sector 9 plays Bhangra, with wacky guitar playing over the top.

Which happens to be probably my favorite band right now..

Oh Sector 9 is awesome. And so we have kind of a jungle thing happening on some tunes, and some pretty cool beats, but we’re actually all still playing too.

For the Fareed Haque Group do you play the sitar when it’s played?

Oh ya. 

I assumed so, but wasn’t sure if there was some type of addition. 

I have a custom built guitar/sitar, made by Kim Schwartz in New Mexico. The cool thing about this is that it’s a sitar, but I can actually play pretty loud and rock on it, which is not the case for most sitar’s, it’s a pretty soft, acoustic instrument. 

You are familiar with the band The Slip I imagine?

Ya, Brad and I have played together a bunch of times.

I assumed so, now does he have a similar. . .

He has a Choral sitar, I think it was designed in the sixties and seventies to be an electric sitar, and it has some of the qualities of the sitar, but I haven’t played with that much, so I’m not sure how similar or different it is from what I have. Mine has 13 different drone strings in addition to the guitar strings, so it has some of the harp like, sympathetic strings the guitar has. 

The more I talk to you; the more excited I am to see the Fareed Haque Group.

It’s a fun band. It’s kind of a pity that in a way it’s going to take a minute for people to distinguish between Garaj and Fareed Haque Group. In Garaj Mahal I’m basically rocking out all night, which is a blast don’t get me wrong. Fareed Haque Group is funkier, a little more intense, hypnotic, Indian, funky, and also a little jazzier. 

I was thinking again, I still have this DJ running around in my head, when he’s spinning while you guys are playing what type of beats is he spinning? Do you even know what he’s putting on his decks?

Well ya, because we argue about it all the time (laughing light heartedly). No I mean I’m into beats. A lot of jungle beats, a fair amount of samples, things like that, some loops, and some Indian drumming and Indian vocals and things like that.

I think that’s really, almost necessary, to push forward with DJ’s, because it seems to be the movement of the future.

Well I think that what’s happening now, is that we’ve all been exposed to many different types of music. So what’s fascinating now is how those things interface with each other. And it’s been going on for a while all over the place, and I think the new thing is to try to keep that interest in camber and different types of grooves, and different sounds, and the huge palate of colors that a DJ offers, but to be able to do it spontaneously. Not to have it be something you have to go out and buy a single, not preprogrammed, but where music can once again be part of the social structure of society, where it can be part of our everyday lives, and still be hip, and technologically current.

Fareed rocking out with KDTU

Definitely. And I interview maybe two people a month, and I’m surprised how many musicians that I certainly respect are almost bull headed about electronic music and DJ’s. . . 

You mean anti that?

Yes very anti, not all by any stretch of the imagination, but I just actually had a conversation a couple of days ago, with an individual and we just couldn’t seem to see eye to eye on the topic. I had no idea that there was even a DJ in the Fareed Haque Group because as you said, on the samples I have the DJ isn’t mixed in yet.

We are always walking a fine line, we don’t want it to be techno pop 101 either – (starts making the signature 4/4 house beat with his voice) – bump, bump, bump, bump. 

Ya I hate that house beat.

It’s a cool beat for a while, but we don’t have strobe lights going all night long. So I think there is a balance. The issue is there are plenty of DJ’s out there, and there’s plenty of DJ’s that are lousy musicians, and all I’m referring to in terms of that is taste. Because ultimately good music is a matter of taste not a matter of talent. And as far as I’m concerned there are some cats who have unbelievable taste, and their music is wonderful. I don’t care what elements you take, whether it’s chopsticks, paint, the English language, or sound bytes, it’s all just a puzzle to be assembled into an artistic form.

Definitely, and that’s a wonderful way of putting it. 

This has been part one of the two part series. Just the tip of the iceberg, if you will. Be sure to check back soon for the whole story. 

The Fareed Haque Group will be playing at the Wise Fools Pub in Chicago this Thursday (1/10) and Friday (1/11) for an After Holidaze Whigout!! Members of Umphrey's McGee will sit in on Thursday. Wigs are optional but highly encouraged (get $2 off at the door with your wig ON). 

Garaj Mahal will play three nights in Denver at Quixote's True Blue, February 8 - 10. Check out Garaj Mahal's upcoming tour dates.

Source: The Kayceman JamBase | Head Quarters

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" . . . a brilliant classical guitarist" -Cadence

" . . . a stunning virtuoso" -Jazziz

"Fareed Haque is one of the most talented guitarists/composers on the music scene today." -The New York City Tribune

Guitar virtuoso and Blue Note recording artist Fareed Haque enjoys a career that spans the spectrum of musical styles. Born in 1963 to a Pakistani father and a Chilean mother, extensive travels, especially long stays in Spain, France, Iran, Pakistan and Chile, exposed him to different musics from a very early age. This natural eclecticism has become the hallmark of Fareed's music, and he has established himself as one of the most innovative composer/musicians currently on the international scene. The 1981 Recipient of North Texas State University's Jazz Guitar Scholarship, Haque spent a year studying with renowned jazz guitarist and pedagogue Jack Peterson. Fareed's growing interest in the classical guitar led him to transfer to Northwestern University, where he completed his studies in classical guitar under David Buch, John Holmquist and Anne Waller. 

Moving easily between jazz and classical guitar, Fareed's versatility has created a demand for him with prominent jazz and classical artists. A legend in Chicago jazz circles since his student days at Northwestern University, Fareed has performed or recorded with such legends as Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Dizzy Gillespie, Paquito D'Rivera, Dave Holland, Bob James, Sting, Cassandra Wilson, Javon Jackson, Joe Zawinul, Kurt Elling, Lester Bowie, Arturo Sandoval, Nigel Kennedy, Edgar Meyer, Bob James, Joe Henderson, Kahil el Zabar, Defunckt, and Ramsey Lewis. 

As a classical guitarist, Fareed has performed as soloist and accompanist with Nigel Kennedy, Robert Conant, Edgar Meyer, Stephen Stubbs, Frank Bungarten, members of the Vermeer Quartet and many symphony orchestras in the U.S. and abroad. He is an active transcriber of baroque, as well as South American music and has had numerous modern works dedicated to him. 

In addition to being a featured artist on WFMT's Dame Myra Hess concert series and Live from Studio One, Fareed has twice been selected Talent Deserving Wider Recognition in Downbeat magazine. Fareed has also been featured on WTTW's ArtBeat, Ben Sidran's New Visions, Michelob Presents Sunday Night with David Sanborn on NBC, his own Lonesome Pines Special for PBS, and on BET cable jazz channel. Recent festival appearances include Cordoba international, Caracas, Go'ttingen, and Rantucci. 

In 1989, Fareed joined the faculty of Northern Illinois University, where he currently holds an associate professorship in jazz and classical guitar studies, (but don't ever call him "Professor Haque," or he'll smash you over the head with an MXR distortion -plus). 

In the jamworld his style and musicianship has expanded even further, and playing with Kai Eckhardt, Alan Hertz, and Eric Levy in Garaj Mahal, three masters of their respective instruments, there are truly no limits on how, what (and when!) he can compose and perform.

Source: http://www.garajmahaljams.com/fareed.html