Anouar Brahem - The Astounding Eyes Of Rita - 2009

Anouar Brahem, masterful musician and composer of Tunisian oud, who already surprised us with such exquisite works as Thimar (1998), Astrakan Café (2000) or Le Voyage de Sahar (2006), dedicated to the memory of the Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish his album The AstoundingEyes Of Rita, with the collaboration of Khaled Yassine to the darbuka and the blessing, Klaus Gesing with the bass clarinet and Björn Meyer to the double bass.

Brahem combines, again, with absolute naturalness the traditional Arab musical forms with a code reading of improvisation (jazz) and an instrumental combination that simply combines instruments of Eastern tradition (the oud, the darbuka and the blessing) with instruments of tradition western (bass clarinet and double bass). Compositions by Anouar Brahem that start from melodies developed by the oud and the bass clarinet, instruments "that seem to belong to each other," according to Brahem. Klaus Gesing brings the beautiful sound of the clarinet that marries perfectly with the vibration of the oud strings, with which it is intertwined in the melodies and with whom most of the solos are distributed.

Far from the usual sound of the drums in jazz, the Arab percussions propose a rhythmic support that acquires nuances of an almost melodic subtlety, which involve the group until forming a unit, in this case, of four musicians. The quartet sounds with such precision that it might seem like a formation founded in the past and, nevertheless, they met for the first time for recording in Udine (Italy) in October 2008. Absolute exquisiteness with cover of the Lebanese Fouad Elkoury (included in his photographic series entitled "Suite Egyptienne"), as if it were Darwish's "Rita and the rifle" poem: a particular look, of melancholy expressiveness while serene, as if sad reality were imposed but far from defeating it. (Adapted from "The Jazz Club")

Tracks list:

01. The Lover Of Beirut

02. Dance With Waves

03. Stopover At Djibouti

04. The Astounding Eyes Of Rita

05. Al Birwa

06. Galilee Mon Amour

07. Waking State

08. For No Apparent Reason