The late 60's and early 70's saw the steady deterioration of Hindi film music, and before one could say K.L. Saigal, the disco trend had caught on youngsters who preferred the wild beats of western pop and disco music to the lilting tunes of Hindi films. It was during that time a music form which gradually but definitely became popular was 'ghazals'. Begum Akhtar had her following of ghazal lovers. Then came Mehdi Hassan's trip to India . His live shows were well-attended and cassettes of his ghazals sold well. He was followed by his fellow countryman, Ghulam Ali, who became equally well-known. These Pakistani singers reached the remotest towns of India via cassettes.
On this side of the border, the Indian couple Jagjit and Chitra Singh, the ghazal exponents did live shows and sang at private mehfils. Having seen the success of Mehdi Hassan and Ghulam Ali, HMV put out a disc of Jagjit and Chitra Singh. During that period Sanjeev Kohli,son of Madan Mohan, discovered a singer called Talat Aziz , who was young, good-looking, malleable and above all, he had a good voice.
Jagjit Singh had already heard Talat sing at a Mehfil in Hyderabad, so he agreed to compose his first album; which was phenomenal success. Music India then decided to experiment Talat on his own - to see whether he was good enough on his own or whether Jagjit's name had contributed to the success of the album. But even his second album and subsequent releases did extremely well.The rest is history...
Talat Aziz's true inspiration in ghazal singing is Mehdi Hassan saheb. According to Talat he brought a revolution to ghazal singing with his unique style of blending classical ragas with ghazals.
After completing his graduation, he made a choice to go fully professional in his musical career. In 1978 he packed his bags and left Hyderabad to Mumbai to the city of the rich and the famous.
Talat Aziz is a thorough professional who expresses his poetic verses with great precision collaborating feelings of love, romance and calamity moulded authentically in a ghazal format. Talat Aziz is truly the most versatile legends in the world of ghazal singing.
He believes that the most important thing about a ghazal is the mood it weaves with the help of sensitive lyrics, deliberately underplayed music and rich, soothing tones of the singer. A ghazal is meant to be heard at sunset; the time to recuperate from the day's strains or the time to resurrect and as is usual relish forgotton pains.