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Wajdi Cherif

About Me

Wajdi Cherif is a pianist and composer residing in Paris, France.

I began playing piano by ear at 5, playing the Arabic traditional music I heard on the radio. Then I studied the English language and literature in Tunis, Tunisia, while being active as a professional musician. I played with many renowned Tunisian Artists in France, Tunisia and Italy since 1996. My love for jazz began a bit late, at 22, but I felt quickly that this music was familiar to me and it was just a lack of exposure as I grew up in a place where people listened mostly to Arabic and oriental music and pop music. After playing and studying jazz standards for a while, I tried to mix up jazz with the Arabic sounds and rhythms of my native culture, which is my main musical background. My CD Phrygian Istikhbar was released in 2003 and is my first exerience in mixing the two cultures in music.

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