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

Tareq Abboushi

Abboushi has been playing the buzuq starting at the National Conservatory of Music in Ramallah, Palestine, and continuing in New York City. He also is an accomplished jazz pianist, having studied at William Paterson University. His band Shusmo has a self-titled release that is well worth getting, with a great mix of original tunes and improvisations. Clarinetist Lefteris Bournias is a fiery complement to the more introspective musings of Abboushi's buzuq.

Tareq Abboushi - Buzuq, percussion, composition Lefteris Bournias - Clarinet Héctor Morales - Congas, Cajón Zafer Tawil - Riq, Durbakkeh, Cymbals Dave Phillips- Bass

Amir ElSaffar

Iraqi-American trumpeter, santour player, vocalist, and composer Amir ElSaffar grew up in River Forest, IL, a suburb west of Chicago; he was first exposed to jazz recordings by his father, and his mother taught him to sing and play American folk songs on ukulele and guitar when he was nine. He eventually found his calling with the trumpet
After moving to New York in 2000, he became more involved with studying the Arab and specifically Iraqi maqam. In 2002, ElSaffar immersed himself in the music of his father's ancestral past, the Iraqi maqam. He traveled to Iraq, throughout the Middle East and to Europe pursuing masters who could impart to him this centuries-old oral tradition. He learned to play the santour (Iraqi hammered dulcimer) and to sing, and now leads Safaafir, the only ensemble in the US performing Iraqi Maqam in its traditional format. He has also uses techniques for the trumpet that enable microtones and ornaments that are characteristic to Arabic music but are not typically heard on a trumpet.

The record Two Rivers is ElSaffar's clearest mixing of jazz and Arabic music.

Amir ElSaffar: trumpet, voice, santoor Rudresh Mahanthappa: alto sax Zafer Tawil: violin, oud, dumbek Tareq Abboushi: buzuq, frame drums Carlo Rosa: bass Nasheet Waits: drums.