Arabic Jazz Blog Update

Dear readers, although I am no longer maintaining this blog, I plan to leave it up for archival purposes as long as Blogger remains active.  Going forward, I'm trying to consolidate more of my work in one place so I will be sharing more sheet music and posts related to the oud and Arabic music over on my website: https://brianprunka.com/words

I'll also be sharing posts related to jazz, improvisation, guitar and possibly other things both music-related and not.  I hope you'll check it out!

Ibrahim Maalouf ابراهيم معلوف‎ | Wind

Originally from Beirut, Lebanon, Ibrahim Maalouf has lived in Paris, France since childhood. He belongs to the small club of musicians capable of playing microtonal music well on the trumpet. With the passing of Ergun Senlendirici, and the legendary Samy El-Bably, Maalouf and Amir ElSaffar are the most notable trumpet players using the instrument for maqam-based music.

So it was with some excitement that I discovered that Maalouf had recently released an album with a pretty stellar jazz cast: Mark Turner, Clarence Penn, and Larry Grenadier. I hadn't heard of the pianist, Frank Woeste, but listening to the recording is sounds to me like the music is very much a collaboration between him and Maalouf. A lot of the record has the sort of dark, brooding quality often associated with ECM records, but with a more overt intensity. A handful of tracks break out of this mold with more rhythmic intensity and adventurousness: the aptly-named "Excitement", as well as "Sensuality", "Issues" and "Mystery". "Issues" has a virtuosic bass solo by Grenadier, and "Excitement" has some great playing by Turner.

A minor thing, but I would have liked to Mark Turner out front a bit more on the record; one of the greatest soloists alive on the saxophone (in my opinion), he seemed a bit under-utilized. Many of the tracks could have been played by any saxophonist, and to me it seemed like a missed opportunity. But I understand that Maalouf had a particular vision for the album and sometimes it's not about the soloist. A different listener may well come to the opposite conclusion; this isn't so much a criticism but a personal preference (and may have something to do with the fact that Turner hasn't put out an album as a leader in years--c'mon Mark!).

 Maalouf's playing is great throughout, with a lot variety in tonal shading and a good balance between his jazz, classical and Arab roots. Regardless, anyone interested in the current state of jazz and Arabic music should check it out. Incidentally, the packaging is beautiful, exceptionally well done.

arr

Looks like Amazon broke the links to listen to clips from many of the albums I posted. I will try to go through and fix it all, and link to youtube or something instead.

Bukra - Rabih Abou-Khalil Transcription

This is the title piece of of Rabih Abou-Khalil's album "Bukra". The album has a bunch of great tunes and some particularly intense saxophone playing by Sonny Fortune.

More info here.

Nashaz

Okay, time for some shameless self-promotion!

An Arabic Jazz group that I created is working on recording an album, and if you're here, I think you may be interested in what we're doing.  Oud, trumpet, saxophone, bass, and percussion --what more could you want? Maybe if our funding goes over we can invite some surprise guests . . .

Please visit our project page at Kickstarter to find out more about it:

Nashaz New Album - Kickstarter

Nashaz - Arabic Jazz

Xalam Project — Brandon Terzic

Oud player Brandon Terzic has put together a great group of musicians, featuring jazzman Matt Darriau (of Paradox Trio fame) on saxophone, kaval, and other wind instruments. Also featured is Matt Kilmer, one of NYC's top percussionists, and Peter Slavov, who currently plays bass with the legendary saxophonist Joe Lovano.

This music has a much more pronounced African influence than most oud music. Terzic spent time in Morocco and has clearly spent a great deal of time absorbing the rhythms and sounds of sub-Saharan Africa as well. The tunes allow a lot of room for improvisation--almost a jam-band type of ethos, as if the Grateful Dead or Phish had come instead from Sudan. Xalam strives for a danceable, feel-good sound, which it achieves—this is a fun album. It's still serious music, however: the musicianship and performances are excellent, by first-rate musicians.

Michel Bismut — Ur

I recently came across this album, a nicely balanced mixing of jazz and Arabic music.  Somewhat reminiscent of Rabih Abou-Khalil's music, but with more emphasis on traditional Arabic elements, especially with the oud playing.  I can't seem to find out much about the musicians.  Anyone know about them? I particularly enjoy the playing of Pardo and Nabil Khalidi.

 Michel Bismut (double bass), Jorge Pardo (soprano saxophone), Nabil Khalidi (oud), Keyvan Chemirani (zarb, daf, gatam)

Nadim — Rabih Abou Khalil Sheet Music

Here's another one by Rabih Abou-Khalil.  This is from al-Jadida (roughly, "the new thing"), the first album I ever heard of his. Enjoy!

 

Bill Frisell — The Intercontinentals

Bill Frisell is a unique musician, and probably the most immediately identifiable jazz guitarist of the past 30 years. He is constantly exploring new ensemble sounds and The Intercontinentals is a group that he put together to showcase the sounds of Africa and the middle east. Christos Govetas is a Greek oud player from Macedonia who plays in the Turkish style.

I guess this is another one that doesn't qualify as "Arabic", but I bend the rules for any jazz with oud. This is a really good album, one that appeals to a wide range of people. Frisell reportedly conceived the project as a collaboration with legendary Malian guitarist Boubacar Traore, but unfortunately it was not possible to make the record with him. They are joined by violinist Jenny Scheinmann, Brazilian guitarist Vinicius Canturia, and Malian percussionist Sidiki Camara, as well as slide guitarist Greg Leisz.

Marcel Khalife — Taqasim

Marcel Khalife needs no introduction to those familiar with the oud. A masterful player, composer, singer, and songwriter, he has contributed much to the world of Arabic music and oud playing. This album, a straightforward trio with bass and percussion, showcases the oud and the jazzier side of his playing in a stripped-down acoustic setting. Highly recommended.

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.
 

Rabih Abou Khalil Sheet Music — Nightfall

Rabih Abou-Khalil was the first oud player I ever heard. The first year or so after I started playing the oud, I transcribed a ton of his tunes. I led a kind of "tribute" band for a while in New Orleans that focused on playing his music. I'm going to post some of them here occasionally. This one is “Nightfall” off his album Between Dusk and Dawn. It uses the Sama'i Thaqil rhythm, but doesn't adhere to the traditional Sama'i form.

You can get the mp3 album from Amazon:

Gord Grdina

Gord Grdina is a talented jazz guitarist, oud player and composer from Vancouver, B.C.
He has a bunch of records which feature different aspects of his playing and writing.

One of the most notable is Think Like the Waves, recorded in 2006.  Grdina wrote all the music, and plays guitar and oud alongside the legendary jazz musicians Gary Peacock and Paul Motian.
Peacock is best known as the longstanding bassist in Keith Jarrett's “Standards” trio, while Motian led a number of groups in NY over the years after gaining notoriety with Bill Evans' trio with Scott LaFaro.

Grdina is adventurous—this music, while informed by tradition, is at least equally influenced by jazz musicians like Paul Bley, Bill Frisell, Eyvind Kang, and Ornette Coleman.  Peacock mentored Grdina for many years and they clearly have a special relationship on this recording. 



Click the image to listen to or purchase the album on Amazon.

Shusmo - Mumtastic

Buzuq player and composer Tareq Abboushi has put together another excellent Arabic-meets-jazz record, entitled Mumtastic. 
Tareq studied jazz and piano at the esteemed William Patterson University in New Jersey, but grew up in Ramallah and has lived in Brooklyn for the past several years.  A soulful player and improviser with a deep sense of tarab, he is also a very talented composer with a gift for lively, memorable tunes.

Shusmo's previous recording "One" was excellent, and this is may be even better.
A better review than I can write is here: www.rootsworld.com/0603123/reviews/mumtastic-11.shtml
Also:
secretarchivesofthevatican.wordpress.com/2011/07/02/album-review-mumtastic-by-shusmo
and:
insideworldmusic.blogspot.com/2011/06/cd-review-tareq-abboushi-shusmos.html
and:
kunc.org/post/shusmo-funky-new-yorkers-middle-eastern-roots

Astrakan Café - Sheet Music

Here's a transcription I did of the title piece from Anouar Brahem's album Astrakan Cafe. There are two versions on the album. They are mainly the same, but are slightly different in the number of repeats and some of the rhythms are played with variations throughout. I tried to create an overall version. Another ending possibility is just repeating the last four bars and fading out.

You can purchase this great album from Amazon:
Astrakan Café

Rima Khcheich -videos

I had been hoping that Rima Khcheich and Yuri Honing would record a sequel to Orient Express, but in the meantime, there are some nice YouTubes of more Arabic jazz goodness:

Salah Ragab and the Cairo Jazz Band

From www.passionate-music.com:
Drummer and multi-instrumentalist Salah Ragab was a central figure in the history of jazz in Egypt. A sometime collaborator with Sun Ra, Ragab founded the Cairo Jazz Band in 1968, the same year that he became the head of the Egyptian Military Music Department. The Cairo Jazz Band was Egypt's first big band, mixing American jazz with North African music, combining jazz instrumentation and musical style with indigenous melodies and instruments . . .more

This is a pretty amazing record, definitely has some late '60s free/pyschedelic vibe to it. More of a jazz record in a lot of ways (don't expect much oud), though of course the Arabic roots are clear. In some ways it makes me think of the Latin-jazz developments in the 50s and 60s with musicians like Dizzy Gillespie and Tito Puente.
Arabic jazz seems to be taking longer to catch on . . .

It draws frequent comparisons to the work of Sun Ra, with whom Ragab collaborated (see below). While the influence is undeniable, Ragab has an engaging voice of his own and I suspect he was a fan of Duke Ellington as well. I love these unexpected records from the past that point to a time when record companies were more daring and were obviously not being run by the accounting department.



This is another one for the Sun Ra fans:

Ahmed Abdul-Malik Sheet Music

Here are some transcriptions of the tunes from Ahmed Abdul-Malik's 1958 record Jazz Sahara. My impression is that Abdul-Malik didn't really "write" these tunes, but arranged them from themes that he had heard in traditional Arabic pieces.
The charts are "lead sheet" style, with a simple version of the melody. Ornaments and rhythmic variations are open to interpretation.

The record featured a mix of musicians from the NY middle-eastern "cabaret" scene, with Naim Karacand (violin), Jack Ghanaim (qanun), and Mike Hamway (percussion) joined by hard-hitting jazz musicians Johnny Griffin (saxophone) and Al Harewood (drum set). I've mentioned this record before, as the first recorded meeting of jazz and Arabic music, it remains a sentimental favorite despite some flaws (Although a world-class bassist, Abdul-Malik is not a, shall we say, subtle oud player, and the post-recording edits are laughably inept).

Available at Amazon (click image):

Joseph Tawadros

Joseph Tawadros is a stellar young oud player. He was born in Egypt and grew up in Australia.
He has a number of recordings, but this is his first foray into Arabic jazz. The Hour of Separation, a recent release, has an all-star lineup of great jazz musicians.

Joseph Tawadros, oud John Abercrombie, guitar John Patitucci, bass Jack DeJohnette, drums James Tawadros, percussion

Chaouki Smahi

Chaouki Smahi was born 1963 in Morocco and brought up in Algeria. He now lives in Switzerland. He is an accomplished oud player and violinist and percussionist. He has a few recordings, most of which involve jazz musicians.
Sadaka is my favorite of his recordings. Straightforward arrangements and recording, with the focus on oud, saxophone and percussion. Smahi plays in a fairly traditional Arabic style, but Mariano tastefully incorporates jazz ideas on the saxophone.

Chaouki Smahi: oud, violin, vocals, darbouka Charlie Mariano: alto saxophone

He is on another Charlie Mariano record called Nassim which is somewhat less succesful but still has some nice moments. It's definitely more of a deliberate "Arabic-Jazz" fusion, but overreaches at times.

It doesn't seem to be available in the U.S., but you might be able to find a download somewhere . . .