Atlas Maior - Riptide

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 150, August/September 2019.

Atlas Maior
Riptide
Atlas Maior (59 mins)

This Austin, Texas-based band specialise in a mix of contemporary and progressive jazz with music from the Arab and Turkish worlds. At the core of Atlas Maior and Riptide is the intricate interplay between the alto saxophone of Josh Thompson and the oud of Charlie Lockwood. They take turns in soloing, they come together for unison sections and branch off into harmonies occasionally.

While similar Arabic jazz fusions can tend towards the slower, quieter and more pensive side of things, you won’t get that here. The default pace is driving and the energy is just tastefully short of bombastic. There are cameos from other styles such as cumbia, Ethiojazz, surf rock and reggae, and the sax sometimes has a Balkan feel to it, bringing to mind Yuri Yunakov.

There’s also a handful of guests joining the sax-oud-drums (Ted Camat) core of Atlas Maior. Roberto Riggio provides some beautiful double-stopped violin on the track ‘Chamber of Mirrors’ but it’s the album’s closer ‘Osman Pehlivan’ featuring Palestinian oud player Sari Adoni that is the overall highlight. The ten-minute epic allows for the development of emergent thematic material that draws on all the other styles found throughout the album, leading to a fulfilling conclusion.

Obituary: Adel Salameh (1966-2019)

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 146, April 2019.

The Palestinian oud player Adel Salameh died on January 23. Born in Nablus and growing up in the nearby city of Tulkarm, Salameh first learnt the oud in informal, social settings, but took it to the next level by studying music at university, first in Jordan and then Iraq. After settling in Europe in 1990, he became instrumental in the promotion of the oud across the continent.

He was particularly known for his international collaborations, including the celebrated duet with Indian sarod player Krishnamurti Sridhar (released as the album The Arab Path to India on WOMAD Select in 1996), and performing with jazz, flamenco and North African musicians. He was passionate about promoting the oud to as many listeners and would-be performers as possible, teaching classes all across Europe and even organising an intensive week-long ‘oud camps’ in Switzerland. Long-time readers of Songlines will be familiar with Salameh from a Tools of the Trade feature in #5, which examined the history and construction of the oud, as well as his own close personal relationship with the instrument.


Photo: Adel Salameh, by Laure Abouaf.

Various Artists - The Rough Guide to the Music of Palestine

First published in fRoots issue 376, October 2014

Various Artists
The Rough Guide to the Music of Palestine
World Music Network (2CD, 122 mins)

What a pertinent release. With the Israel/Gaza conflict experiencing a particularly bloody recapitulation, the World Music Network continue their fantastic series of Rough Guides with the Rough Guide to the Music of Palestine, focussing on the often overlooked culture of the troubled region.

One might expect this album to be chock-full of Palestine’s particular brand of Levantine classical music and Egyptian-inspired orchestral works that are seemingly ever-present in the Arabic world, but, while some great examples of these are included, they sit amongst a diverse line-up that includes hip-hop, punk, pop, reggae and a fair amount of jazz. Full credit should be given to compilers Nili Belkind and Nadeem Karkabi for managing to squeeze in so many styles without any sounding out of place or the album feeling too muddled. With such a range of genres, it’s quite difficult to choose particular highlights, although Sanaa Moussa’s indie-acoustic tribute to Ottoman-period Palestinian songsters on 'Wea’younha' and the driving modern jazz of Michel Sajrawy’s 'Tojann' stand out in particular.

As with most recent Rough Guide releases, the Music of Palestine comes with a bonus album – Reflections Of Palestine by buzuk player Ramzi Aburedwan. Mixing Arabic classical music with jazz, tango and French elements, this bonus is an appropriate and complimentary addition to the main compilation.

The collection’s attention to the less ‘traditional’ side of Palestine’s musical spectrum can be seen as a positive, humanising tool at a time where most images we see of Palestine are of the ruined buildings and wounded civilians of Gaza. It also serves as a reminder of some of the great culture that may well be disappearing before our eyes. Even disregarding the timeliness of such a release, however, it’s still a brilliant and varied compilation from a country that is not necessarily famous for its musical output.