Jazz Articles about Amir ElSaffar

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Amir ElSaffar Two Rivers Ensemble: Inana

by AAJ Italy Staff
February 22, 2012

Il fatto che l'intestatario del disco si chiami Amir ElSaffar, il suo stesso titolo (Inana è un'antica divinità sumera) e il nome del gruppo che l'ha realizzato potrebbero far pensare a un CD molto spinto sul pedale dell'etnico. Il che non è, almeno non in maniera prevalente: dati umori sono di fatto circoscritti alle timbriche (su cui peraltro non si indulge più di tanto) di oud e bouzouki, alle provenienze geografiche di metà gruppo e a larghi segmenti del trittico ...

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Amir ElSaffar: At Two Rivers' Confluence

by Daniel Lehner
February 21, 2012

There was a point during Amir ElSaffar's study of Arabic music where he almost didn't come back to jazz. He had gone to Iraq to study maqam, the system of melodic modes in traditional Arabic music, in order to bring some of the concepts into jazz. However, the experience proved to be a deepening one for ElSaffar.“I was supposed to spend three weeks in Iraq, but once I had gotten a taste I realized that I wasn't really ...

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Amir ElSaffar Two Rivers Ensemble: Inana

by Troy Collins
October 18, 2011

Born in Chicago to an American mother and Iraqi father, trumpeter Amir ElSaffar put his promising jazz career on hold in 2002 to study traditional Iraqi maqam abroad. His 2007 debut, Two Rivers (Pi Recordings), bore the fruit of his international studies, successfully fusing venerable aspects of the Iraqi classical vocal tradition with advanced improvisation techniques culled from American jazz. Pushing the cross-cultural envelope even further, Radif Suite (Pi Recordings), his 2010 collaboration with Iranian-American tenor saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh, combined ...

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Discoveries Along The Pitch Continuum

by Amir ElSaffar
April 11, 2010

Growing up in an Iraqi-American household in Chicago, I was exposed to many musical influences from an early age: first Louis Armstrong, then Lutheran Hymns, then the Beatles, then Hendrix, then Miles. Arabic music, though constantly playing in the background during family gatherings, did not capture my attention until I was in my mid-teens and my sister Dena started a Middle Eastern music ensemble, called Salaam. I was intrigued by their music, but knowing that it used 'quarter tones,' it ...

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Amir ElSaffar / Hafez Modirzadeh: Radif Suite

by Stuart Broomer
April 7, 2010

This is an illuminating meeting between musicians who share similar cultural background and creative directions. Trumpeter Amir ElSaffar is an Iraqi-American whose work has fused elements of jazz and the maqam music of Iraq. His CD-length suite from 2007, Two Rivers, was a triumph of synthesis and vision. Tenor saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh is an older Iranian-American who has worked with jazz forms and Persian dastgah to develop his own tonal system that he dubs “chromodal," suggesting perhaps the “harmolodics" of ...

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Amir ElSaffar: Two Rivers

by Laurel Gross
January 10, 2008

This exploration of Iraqi, American and Arab sensibilities, rooted in the lands and cultures bordering the Tigris and Euphrates rivers--the two flowing sources of the CD's title--is deeply affecting, musically adventurous and provocative. American-born ElSaffar, a talented New York-based trumpeter/composer, ventured to Iraq six years ago to study the music of his father's country of heritage. He returned to the US with a working knowledge of its centuries-old musical Maqam tradition, rich in emotional and storytelling content ...

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Amir ElSaffar: Two Rivers

by Troy Collins
October 26, 2007

The blues are universal. Nowhere is this more implicit than Iraqi-American trumpeter Amir ElSaffar's Pi Recordings debut Two Rivers. Drawing inspiration from the complex and often bloody history surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, ElSaffar's multi-layered writing is equally rooted in traditional Arabic classicism and Western concepts of jazz improvisation.

A child of the Chicago suburbs, ElSaffar's interest in traditional Iraqi music is fairly recent. A former sideman to pianists Cecil Taylor and Vijay Iyer, ElSaffar made multiple ...