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Kinan Azmeh: Live In Berlin, Rooted In Damascus
by Lawrence Peryer
Today, the Spotlight shines on clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh.Earlier this year, Kinan released Live in Berlin (Dreyer Gaido, 2025), his fourteenth album with his CityBand quartet. The album captures music he wrote during Syria's 2011 uprising--pieces that carry the weight of watching your homeland torn apart from thousands of miles away. Born in Damascus and now based in Brooklyn, Kinan has spent decades crossing the world with his clarinet, performing with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble, the ...
Continue ReadingNew Music from Azmeh, Imboden, Lehman & More
by Bob Osborne
This edition of the show features twelve brand new album releases with a broad variety of jazz, varied line-ups and disparate subject matter. Playlist Show Intro 00:00 Kinan Azmeh And City Band “Dance" from Live In Berlin (Dreyer Gaido) 00:28 Sean Imboden Large Ensemble “Someone To Watch Over Us" from Communal Heart (Self Released) 13:53 Atlantic Jazz Collective (feat. Norma Winstone and Joe LaBarbera) “Raffish" from Seascape (Alma Records) 22:37 Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner “40b" from ...
Continue ReadingKinan Azmeh: Berlin and Beyond
by Katchie Cartwright
Syrian-born New York-based clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh and his CityBand released Live in Berlin on March 1, 2025 (recorded in 2021), dedicating the project to the people of Syria with this statement: “It moves me profoundly to be sharing this album with the world as my Syrian people are able to sing again after the long and costly struggle against tyranny and dictatorship. The album is dedicated to all who believe that making music is also an act of ...
Continue ReadingKinan Azmeh, Yazz Ahmed, Arturo O'Farrill, Mortelle Randonnée & More
by Ludovico Granvassu
Enjoy a playlist featuring heartfelt and original tributes to Carla Bley, and projects enriched by Arabic, West-African and Indian traditions.Happy listening!Playlist Ben Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 Mortelle Randonnée “Musique Mecanique I" La reine uphone (Mr. Morezon) 0:16 Host talks 5:28 Arturo O'Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra “Blue Palestine Part Two" Mundoagua--Celebrating Carla Bley (Zoho) 7:08 Host talks 12:43 Yazz Ahmed “Though My Eyes Go ro Sleep, My ...
Continue ReadingKinan Azmeh: Live in Berlin
by Frank Housh
Clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh occupies a unique space in the musical world. He is grew up with Western classical music and trained at the Higher Institute of Music in Damascus as well as Juilliard, where he began his studies one week before the 9/11 attacks. His expansive and eclectic body of work includes compositions for orchestra, chamber music, opera, theater, dance, film, and most recently, scoring 30 episodes of the Syrian-Lebanese TV series, “Nazret Hob" ("Look of ...
Continue ReadingTake Five With Clarinet And Composer Kinan Azmeh
by AAJ Staff
Meet Kinan Azmeh Hailed as a “virtuoso, intensely soulful" by The New York Times and “spellbinding" by the New Yorker, Syrian-born, Brooklyn-based genre-bending composer, clarinetist and improvisor Kinan Azmeh has been touring the globe with great acclaim. He has collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, John McLaughlin, Daniel Barenboim and the New York Philharmonic, among others. Azmeh is the winner of Germany's Opus Klassik Award for his solo album Uneven Sky (Dreyer Gaido, 2019) and is featured on the Grammy-winning album Sing ...
Continue ReadingBob Gluck: Early Morning Star
by Jerome Wilson
On this release, pianist Bob Gluck mixes the realms of classical music and jazz in interesting ways. The formal, declarative music produced by Gluck, clarinetist Kinan Azmeh and vocalist Andrea Wolper is given flow and earthiness by the rhythmic pull of bassist Ken Filiano and drummer Tani Tabbal. The front-line combination fluidly rises and falls through pieces like the sparkling “A Time of Singing," with Wolper singing words from the Bible's Song of Songs over surging piano, and ...
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