Amir Elsaffar

[ben741]

Anyone listening to Amir Elsaffar? Either with the Two Rivers group or without. I am interested to hear any opinions, I can"t seem seem to find him mentioned anywhere on the forums.

[jazz oud]

I know Amir, he's a very talented musician.

I think you might get more of a conversation going if you share your own thoughts.

[ben741]

I dont think I know enough about Jazz to have a knowlegable opionion but I enjoy the Two Rivers albums very much. I like how it fuses modern jazz and middle eastern influences into something that is both and niether at the same time. I find that a lot of western music that uses "world" influences becomes sounding like nothing more than Jazz tinged with with whatever sound they are trying to incorporate. The Two Rivers albums seem like they are a fully realized fusion of different influences.

I have enjoyed the Codona albums, and the Jan Garbarek Eastern infulenced albums but niether seem to be as seamless in juxtaposing styles.

[jazz oud]

I think he's definitely doing some cool stuff and exploring some interesting ways of combining the two traditions. His traditional Iraqi music is great as well.

We've played together on a few occasions and work with a lot of the same musicians. It sounds like you would probably find some music on my arabic jazz blog to be of interest (link below).

You might like some of the stuff from this project of mine:
http://www.nashazmusic.com/video.html


cheers

[ben741]

Thank you for posting the video link. I love it.

And for the info.

[jazz oud]

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it.

There is another musician, Lety ElNaggar here in New York doing Jazz/Arabic music, Amir plays with her sometimes as well: http://lety.bandcamp.com

[ben741]

Thanks again for the music, I have been listening a lot to Anouar Brahem this week, and purchased tickets to see him play in Ottawa with John Surman and Dave Holland in June.