Jazz Articles about Anouar Brahem

Jazz Festival Ljubljana 2022

by Ziga Koritnik
August 8, 2022

Anouar Brahem: Blue Maqams

by Mike Jurkovic
November 13, 2017

Oud-master Anouar Brahem's instantly intoxicating, Blue Maqams, caps off a truly remarkable year for ECM Records. Just think, the label's release schedule this year included essential recordings by Benedikt Jahnel Trio's The Invariant, Django Bates' breakthrough The Study of Touch, Colin Vallon Trio's Danse, Vijay Iyer Sextet's Far From Over, and Gary Peacock's Tangents, all of them at once mysterious, challenging, and ultimately rewarding upon each listen. A magam defines traditional Arab musical phrases, tones, notes and melodies ...

Anouar Brahem: Blue Maqams

by Mark Sullivan
November 3, 2017

Tunisian oudist/composer Anouar Brahem has been playing with jazz improvisers since the 1980s. But his earliest ECM recordings, Barzakh (1991) and Conte de l'Incroyable Amour (1992) stayed firmly in the Arabic music tradition. His recordings with jazz players began with Madar (1994) with saxophonist Jan Garbarek and tabla player Shaukat Hussain; Thimar (1997) with bassist Dave Holland and saxophonist John Surman made a fuller synthesis of both traditions. Blue Maqams takes the approach further, bringing Brahem's Arabic music to a ...

Anouar Brahem: Blue Maqams

by John Kelman
October 13, 2017

Following an unusually long, five-year gap between 2009's low register-driven The Astounding Eyes of Rita and 2014's particularly ambitious orchestral collaboration, Souvenance, Tunisian oudist Anouar Brahem returns with Blue Maqams, another game-changing release on ECM Records. Change--or, in some cases, natural evolution--has never been hard to find on Brahem's previous nine albums for the label, the oudist's consistent home (barring his soundtrack to The Silences of the Palace, release in 1994 by Caroline) since his ethno-centric trio date, Barzakh (1991). ...

Anouar Brahem: Blue Maqams

by Mario Calvitti
October 9, 2017

Fin dal suo disco d'esordio (Barzakh del 1991, pubblicato, come tutti i successivi lavori, dalla ECM e preceduto solo da alcune cassette autoprodotte) il compositore e suonatore di oud tunisino Anouar Brahem è stato tra i principali esponenti di una musica a cavallo tra Medio Oriente e Occidente, cercando una fusione tra musica araba, improvvisazione jazzistica e musica classica europea, insieme al coetaneo collega libanese Rabih Abou-Khalil che lo ha preceduto di qualche anno. Il suo ultimo lavoro, Blue Maqams, ...

Anouar Brahem at Jazzablanca Festival 2015

by Mehdi El Mouden
May 2, 2015

Anouar Brahem Hippodrome Anfa Jazzablanca Festival Casablanca, MoroccoApril 20, 2015 Tunisian oudist/ composer Anouar Brahem is widely acclaimed as a pioneer of the fusion between Middle Eastern music and jazz, with a career spanning over thirty years. In the beginning of the nineties he contributed to the oud celebration spreading in the western world through a music that brought together evasive poetry with elegant arrangements. Well-versed in classical Arabic tenets, his solos ...

Anouar Brahem: Souvenance

by Mario Calvitti
February 18, 2015

Sei anni dopo il precedente The Astounding Eyes of Rita, il tunisino Anouar Brahem ritorna con un nuovo progetto. Il lungo intervallo è dovuto agli avvenimenti politici che dalla fine del 2010 hanno interessato tutto il Nordafrica a partire dalla Tunisia dando origine alla cosiddetta 'Primavera araba' evocata dal titolo del disco e dalla foto di copertina, e che hanno avuto un profondo impatto emotivo sul compositore con l'alternarsi di speranze e timori, anche se la musica, a detta dello ...