Souren Baronian — Taksim

Souren Baronian is a tremendously talented Armenian-American clarinetist with extensive experience in both middle-eastern music and jazz. While his middle-eastern jazz music has influences primarily from Turkey and Armenia, and therefore isn't "Arabic jazz" exactly, I felt that the kinship of maqam-based music made it worthy of mention here. He studied with the reclusive jazz legend Lennie Tristano as well as the respected Turkish master Safet Gundeger, and has performed with many jazz greats like Carla Bley, Phil Woods, Paul Motian.

 He leads Taksim, his group that presents an original synthesis of jazz and eastern music. Their album from 2002 "Blue Algae" is worth a listen for Boronian's unique compositional and playing styles, as well as the masterful musicians in the group like the phenomenal oud player Haig Manoukian.
 

In addition, he performs in ensemble that have a somewhat more traditional approach, like his trio Transition, which released a wonderful album called Desert Winds.