Eight years after Blue Maqams, Anouar Brahem returns with a new project, and a programme of powerfully-moving pieces for oud, cello, piano and bass.
Asked about the nature of his artistic journey, Brahem has drawn analogies with the growth of a tree, its branches spreading out above ground, while roots dig ever deeper. Over time and the course of a remarkable discography beginning with Barzakh, his music has become steadily more inclusive.
While evoking the modes of Arab music as a primary resource, he has consistently sought in his work to engage with the wider world, finding inspiration in many idioms, including jazz improvisation, European classical music and contemporary composition, and shaping a highly personal music that could only have been created by him.
“Today, the sonic materials that seem particularly transformable and stimulating to me are those that combine tradition and modernity,” said Brahem recently. “For example, the Arabic maqams, which are at the heart of my musical identity, fascinate me with their melodic richness and their ability to integrate into contemporary musical contexts. They offer an infinite terrain for experimentation. I find it exciting to juxtapose these ancient modal structures with harmonic approaches from jazz, creating a dialogue between past and present, between cultures and styles.”
On After The Last Sky bassist Dave Holland and pianist Django Bates are again part of the Tunisian oud master’s international quartet, joined now by cellist Anja Lechner. Brahem’s rapport with Holland – first established on the Thimar album of 1998 – is meanwhile legendary. “Dave’s playing gives me wings,” Anouar has said, an observation verified on the striking duo improvisation “The Eternal Olive Tree”.
Throughout the album, in fact, from the exploratory edges of “Endless Wandering”, a piece that vibrates with emotion, to the driving propulsion of “Dancing Under the Meteorites”, Holland’s soulful bass impulses prompt some of Anouar’s most outstanding playing. There is also a particular pleasure in hearing the combined sonorities of oud and bass and cello, warmly embraced in the responsive acoustics of the Lugano studio (where Brahem recorded Souvenance a decade ago). The ensemble sound is exceptional.
The album marks the first time that Anouar has featured a cellist in his group music. Anja Lechner, who has the uncommon distinction of being a classical musician with much experience in improvisation, is effectively a leading voice in the recording. She has long been conversant with Anouar’s compositions and included some of them in her own recitals, and in work with Brahem-associated pianist François Couturier (see for instance the album Lontano). The cello is given the first and last statements on After The Last Sky.
The album begins with “Remembering Hind” – played here by Lechner and Bates – music of mourning for a young victim of war. It ends with “Vague”, one of Anouar’s best-loved pieces (a composition he has recorded on Khomsa and Le Voyage de Sahar), its gentle buoyancy in this rendition like the lapping waters of the eastern Mediterranean.
As with Blue Maqams, Django Bates’ piano has an important, patiently-supportive role throughout. Bates, whose work elsewhere (see for instance The Study of Touch), may often prioritize swing and quick-witted dynamic contrasts, understands that an ongoing sense of flow is crucial to the development of Anouar’s music.
Its effect is cumulative. Yet it also offers space for individual statements, and Django’s swirling and elegant solo on “Awake”, is the more potent for the restraint shown hitherto.
Where should we go after the last frontiers?/Where should the birds fly after the last sky? – These lines of verse by Mahmoud Darwish provided a title, 40 years ago, for After The Last Sky, Edward Said’s meditation on exile and memory. In his liner notes, Adam Shatz considers Anouar Brahem’s music in the contexts of this aesthetic-literary continuum as well as the ongoing struggle for Palestinian rights, a subject preoccupying Brahem’s mind during the preparation of material for the album. In this regard, track titles become pointers for the interested listener to consider.
But, as Anouar also tells Shatz: “Music, and particularly instrumental music, is by nature an abstract language that does not convey explicit ideas. It is aimed more at emotions, sensations, and how it’s perceived varies from one person to another. What may evoke sadness for one person may arose nostalgia for another… I invite listeners to project their own emotions, memories or imaginations, without trying to ‘direct’ them.”
