Back in the 1990s I came across the music of Anouar Brahem for the first time on an incredible record that Miles Davis In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew legend Dave Holland – here once again with the Tunisian oudist – made with Holland’s fellow Englishman John Surman, Thimar.
Since then I’ve been a fan of Brahem and for that matter his fellow oud master the Lebanese musician, Rabih Abou-Khalil.
I suppose the record I go to for pleasure most apart from Thimar is The Astounding Eyes of Rita.
But 2017’s Blue Maqams which Switzerland residing Englishman Django Bates and Holland also were on (joined by another Bitches Brew alumnus, drummer Jack DeJohnette) is also up there.
After The Last Sky was inspired by lines of verse from Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008).
Acclaimed Kassel, Germany born classical cellist Anja Lechner completes the sound for the first time with Brahem in a setting on this latest and makes all the difference recorded at Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in May last year.
Braham’s plangent modalities in his compositional compass are remarkable and Bates’ rapport with his stately melodies, the Arabic scales they inhabit and the dark tonalities of the mood, makes all the difference. It’s an album as much for fans of Bates as for fans of Brahem (for example his meticulous work on ‘Edward Said’s Reverie,’ the penultimate track).
As we all, surely, remain moved by the dreadful suffering of the innocent civilians of war in the middle east these past few years listening here is an act of humane solidarity on one level and on another the latest and maybe even greatest work yet by the master Brahem.
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