1975 Vintage Sabri Brothers' Carnegie Hall Concert Poster

This is a rare vintage poster from the night when the Sabri Brothers became the first ever South Asians to play at the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1975. It was a special concert because it marked one of the earliest times Qawwali music was brought to a Western audience, long before Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan made it into a household name. The New York Times sent one of their reporters to review the performance - a white American man named John Rockwell. This would be Rockwell's first experience with Qawwali music and for him it would be "a long way from the polite boredom of so many Western concerts." Rockwell was in awe. He had never seen such an audience before, clapping and shouting deliriously throughout the night. People from the audience gleefully ran down to the stage and placed offerings of paper money before the musicians. He described one man becoming so excited that he bloodied his head banging it on the edge of the Carnegie stage. Two days later, Rockwell's review was published. "It was really a reaffirmation of the power of music..." wrote Rockwell.