Showing posts with label Jazz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jazz. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Saturday - Jazz in Fez


Rocca Brothers in Concert this Saturday, October 27 at 7 PM at the ALIF Riad, 6 Derb Drissi, Batha, Fes Medina


The Rocca Brothers are a creative jazz and soul duo that have been playing and creating music together since their early childhood. Since both successfully graduating with degrees in music, they regularly perform across London and the UK with their band featuring Patricia Elizabeth on vocals.

Established on the London jazz circuit, the Rocca Brothers and their band can be found performing weekly across the capital. Recent performances include ‘Jazz After Dark’ in Soho, ‘The Dorchester’ in Mayfair, ‘Shakespeares Globe’ on The Thames and ‘Pizza Express Jazz Club’ in Holborn. They have also joined in at jazz events abroad in the USA and Malaysia. They also host a number of their own events such as jazz and soul jam sessions on weekly basis.

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Monday, September 10, 2018

TanJazz is back!


The 19th edition of Tanjazz will take place from 19th to 22nd in Tangier with around 110 artists and musicians of various musical tendencies, but whose common dominator is jazz

The organisers of this musical event said during a press conference on Thursday night in Casablanca, that the 7 special "scenes" are planned for this occasion and will include many groups of from various "jazzy horizons".

"Some perpetuate the memory of the Old Square of New Orleans. Some keep alive the great standards by interpreting them in their own way. Some pay tribute in their style to the missing. Some revisit the hard bop with a new vitality. Some Klezmerise, orientalize or latinize. Others explore the paths of Nu-Jazz and electro jazz. Others finally in surprising solos or duets invent another jazz - their own.

"It's the Jazz in all its forms", say the organisers of this festival which will celebrate its 20 years next year.

Among the novelties, Tanjazz launches this year its "Day Off". Aficionados of music will appreciate a day or early evening program that will allow them to stroll through the streets of Tangier, to see the various facets, while discovering the artists who embody the new contemporary jazz scene.

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Thursday, April 26, 2018

Saturday - Jazz, Swing, Soul and Funk


ALC-ALIF Music Club: Corina Kwami in Concert Saturday, April 28 at 7 PM - ALIF Riad, 6 Derb Drissi, Batha, Fes Medina

Corina is a performer of genres related to jazz music and dance. As a singer and tap dancer, she is motivated by the story-telling power of jazz and its potential for connecting people across genres using jazz as a medium. She has performed as a solo artist and with different bands playing originals and covering big band swing, afro, soul and funk. Through her performance and passion for cities and planning more broadly as an academic, she has connected with people through jazz in several cities across the globe in countries such as Switzerland, Germany, Rwanda, United Kingdom, United States, Colombia and Myanmar.

The concert is free and open to the public!

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Wednesday, April 04, 2018

Saturday - Jazz in Fez

This Saturday at the Hotel Sahrai the Majid Bekkas Quartet will give a concert of Afro Gnaoua jazz hosted by the Institut Français de Fès



The concert runs from 19:00 to 22:00 at the Hotel Sahrai, Bab Elghoul, 81611 Fez.

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Friday, November 24, 2017

Cultural Events in Fez

The French Institute in Fez is presenting music and film.

MONTH OF THE DOCUMENTARY - 18 th Edition
Evening dedicated to Jean Rouch on Saturday, November 25, 19h, at Cinema Boujloud
Chronicle of a Summer.  Entry is free


Paris summer 1960, Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch interview Parisians on how they are coping with life. First question: Are you happy? The themes are varied: love, work, leisure, culture, racism etc. The film is also a questioning of documentary cinema: cinema verite and cinema-lie. Which character do we play in front of a camera and in life

JAZZ CONCERT

DUO: ERIC  LE LANN AND PAUL LAY
Tuesday, November 28, 19h, Dar Batha
Free admission (limited availability)


Eric Le Lann, trumpet player, is one of those elusive musicians who inhabits a world that is rich and varied. He went through all styles without ever denying his membership in the jazz and identity of jazz.
Paul Lay, pianist Martial Solal says has: "Excellent harmonic imagination, diverse game, the most interesting compositions obvious knowledge of jazz history, personal speech. Paul Lay everything to "rise" and last! "


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Thursday, November 02, 2017

Jazz in Fez




The ALC is offering a free jazz concert in the ALIF Riad in Fez this Saturday - Everyone is welcome!




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Thursday, September 28, 2017

The Faugloire Benjamin Project - Jazz in Fez


The Faugloire Benjamin project is a jazz trio composed of three musicians from Marseille: Benjamin Faugloire (piano and composition), Denis Frangulian (double bass) and Jérôme Mouriez (drums). The concert is a project of the French Institute in Fez


If there are musicians for whom music has no other end than itself, there are others for whom it is necessarily the echo of oneself. The pianist Benjamin Faugloire certainly belongs to the second category.

As an architect of his music, committed to preserving spontaneity within written forms, Benjamin Faugloire develops the emotion of a story, finding in an acoustic instrumentation an energy that comes from rock and reminiscences of the best pop.

"Anchoring his band in this contemporary geography of the jazz trio that has grown considerably in recent years and sees the music in panoramic, it scrolls contrasted landscapes, while weaving a narrative thread inscribed in the heart of music, which makes 'chain the chapters with fluidity, without excluding contemplative beaches.
"

"Birth", their last album, recorded with the trio who have accompanied him for more than a decade, is conceived as a a succession of titles that follow each other like the happiness and accidents of life, a reflection of a personal trajectory that passes through its ups and downs, its expectations and its inspirations, its distress and rebirth. Without ever ceasing to advance.


Wednesday 4 October at 19:00 - 20:00

Ryad Dar Batha
30000 Old Fes, Fès, Morocco

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Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Jazz in the Chellah - 22nd Edition


Rabat's, Jazz au Chellah, is back from the 28th of September to October 1st, bringing together European jazzmen and Moroccan musicians from diverse backgrounds, in a magical setting

During this 22nd edition, artists from Austria and Spain will open the festival on Thursday the 28th of September with Vicens Martín Dream Big Band, followed by Shake Stew, an Austrian group of seven musicians. The group will be joined by Nabyla Maan, for an unforgettable encounter that should set the tone for this event.

The second day, Denmark and the BeNeLux countries will be represented by two unique musical experiences. In the early evening, Mathias Heise Quadrillon will perform with his FuRo Jazz, a fusion jazz of Rock and Funk. In the second part of the evening, Dock In Absolute, a Belgian-Luxemburg trio, will push the limits of jazz with a new progressive approach presented by a trio of virtuosos. Their piano, their percussions and their bass will be enriched by the saxophone of the talented Axel Camil and the Moroccan percussions of Mohamed Amine Bliha, for a Moroccan-European fusion.

Dalindeo - the Helsinki based Finnish group

The third evening will be dedicated to the extremities of Europe. Dalindeo, a Finnish jazz group, described as "a delirious mix of surf punk, hot jazz, Finnish tango with a touch of Ennio Morricone", will create a psychedelic journey carried by its six talented musicians. Finland will then give the stage to a Portuguese trio Maria João,  in a surprising marriage between traditional Portuguese music and electronic music, with an encounter with the talent of Moroccan multi-instrumentalist M'hamed El Menjra.

The closing Sunday, October 1st,  is a true epic throughout the world, a whirlwind of the senses from Germany to Egypt. Gregory Gaynair Trio will bring a resolutely human and brilliant touch to modern jazz followed by the Egyptian group Eftekasat, offering an oriental, enchanting and engaging jazz, integrating Balkan, African and Latin influences. The last meeting promises sparks with the Tagnaouite influence of the guembri of Asmaa Hamzaoui & Bnatt Timbouktou. A merger between Morocco, Europe and the Afro-Mediterranean space that will mark this end of edition.

Also on the sidelines of this cultural event are Masterclasses, 4 free concerts at the Bab Mrissa stage in Salé, as well as other surprises.

Since its creation in 1996, Jazz au Chellah has presented to the public a living showcase of jazz from the European Union. These unique concerts are not limited to the festival, but sometimes give rise to musical projects and new musical collaborations between the artists.

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Sunday, September 17, 2017

Lecture in Fez - Ray Charles: The Genius


"Ray Charles: the Genius" A Lecture by John Edward Hasse. Monday, September 18 at 6 PM at the ALIF Villa Residence, 28 Rue Mohammed Diouri. Free and open to the public

Ray Charles overcame racism, poverty, and blindness to gain worldwide acclaim as a singer, songwriter, pianist, and arranger. As a lad, he had ears like a sonic sponge, absorbing everything from blues to country & western music. Infusing rhythm and blues with the fervor of down-home gospel music, he helped pioneer the genre called “soul music.” His unique voice and passionate style made him one of the most beloved musicians of our time. With his genius for fusing gospel, rhythm and blues, soul, blues, jazz, country, rock, and pop, Charles became one of the most innovative and influential talents in American music.

Ray Charles wrote such enduring songs as Hallelujah, I Love Her So and What’d I Say, and made every other song his own—popular standards (Georgia On My Mind; Baby, It’s Cold Outside), rock hits (Eleanor Rigby), crossover country songs (You Are My Sunshine; I Can’t Stop Loving You), and a stirring interpretation of America the Beautiful. Music curator John Edward Hasse tells about acquiring Ray Charles’s Ray-Bans and Braille keyboard for the Smithsonian. And Hasse illuminates Ray Charles’s unique life story and illustrates—with analysis, anecdotes, photos, and video clips—his enduring contributions to American culture.

John Edward Hasse is a museum curator, author, speaker, and leader in his field. For 33 years, he served as Curator of American Music at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, where he curated exhibitions on Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Ray Charles, and founded the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra and Jazz Appreciation Month, now celebrated in all 50 states and in 40 countries. He is former Chairman of Smithsonian Music. He is author of an acclaimed biography, Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington, with a Foreword by Wynton Marsalis, and editor of Jazz: The First Century, with Forewords by Quincy Jones and Tony Bennett.

Hasse is co-author of Discover Jazz and co-producer of Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology. He is a contributor to The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and eight encyclopedias. As an expert on 20th century American music, he has been interviewed in The New York Times, on CBS Sunday Morning, NPR, PBS, CNN, BBC, and many other news outlets. Hasse also served as the principal advisor to the U.S. Postal Service on its stamp series Legends of American Music that began with Elvis Presley. He earned a B.A. Cum Laude from Carleton College and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Indiana University, two Honorary Doctorates, and a Certificate in Business Administration from The Wharton School. He has received two Grammy Award nominations and two ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards for excellence in writing about music. Active in cultural diplomacy for the US State Department, Hasse has lectured on leadership, the arts, and music in 20 countries on six continents.

This lecture, organised by the ALC-ALIF Music Club, is free and open to the general public.

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Thursday, September 07, 2017

Upcoming Moroccan Festivals



Another big event this year in Marrakech. The Oasis Festival is back for a third edition, from the 14th to 17th of September, bringing together the best of the national and international electronic music scene

For its third edition, the biggest festival of electronic music of Morocco provides a rich and varied programme. This year, the organisers have appealed to an array of world-renowned artists, such as the great Richie Hawtin, known for his taste for technological innovation, and the American-Chilean musician, Nicolas Jaar, who, since its inception, has traced line of sophisticated electronic music.

In a very short time, the Oasis festival allowed Morocco to become a long-term player on the map of the festival destinations, and, faithful to its vocation, the festival continues to participate in the emergence of the Moroccan electronic scene, with the participation of founding father Unes, rising star, Jaza, and the new ambassador of Moroccan electronic music, Amine K and many others.

For the organisers, the 2017 edition is the most impressive in terms of programming since the creation of the festival in 2015. For this year they decided to add an extra day with the official opening party taking place on Thursday September 14th, when the popular Solomun will make his first Moroccan appearance.

The Tanjazz Festival will rock Tangier from the 14th to 17th of September. After paying tribute to the women of jazz during its previous edition, it is the turn of young talent to shine in the spotlight
To celebrate its 18th anniversary, there will be five musical stages with more than 120 singers and musicians during the 55 concerts.

"We wanted to introduce the public to the new voices of jazz, which will perhaps be the headliners of tomorrow," says Philippe Lorin, director of the Tanjazz festival. These are, nevertheless, confirmed artists that Lorin, also artistic director of the event, went to look for in different festivals in the world. "I could listen to these artists by traveling, receiving applications, but also by browsing the web, like everyone else," he says.

Spectators will be able to dance to the rhythm of New Orleans thanks to a rich program and artists from here and elsewhere, such as the 18-year-old Spanish trumpeter and singer Rita Payès, who will open the ball on stage at the BMCI Palais, the Croatian pianist and singer Daniel Čačija, and the quartet by Janis Peruzzi, whose composition combines the rhythms of jazz with oriental sounds.

Other artists are expected, among others, to be headliners, the composer and interpreter of Moroccan-Syrian origin, Samia Tawil, with influences both RnB and funk, the Austrian duo Michaela Rabitsch and Robert Pawlik, Nicolle Rochelle  and Hot Antic Jazz Band and many others.

While the Jazz is appreciated by the Moroccan public and is at the core of two other major festivals in Morocco, the Jazzablanca festival in the economic capital and the Jazz at the Chellah in Rabat, it remains, nevertheless, very little played by the local musicians. Tanjazz's artist list includes only two artists of Moroccan origin (Samia Tawil and Teema) this year.


Oujda hosts the 4th Blouza Festival

The Blouza is a costume or dress originally, from the town of Tlemcen. The blouza (strangely) resembles the low-cut dresses and cuffs of Joséphine, the wife of Napoleon I. Some claim its design was a way of paying tribute to the Emperor, who for a time thought of emancipating the natives from the French colonies, La blouza is traditionally worn by married and middle-aged women. It is long and sewn in one piece or two. It is curved at the waist, is worn with short sleeves, the décolleté and the back are worked in pearls and traditional refined embroideries sewn on to form the part covering the whole chest. Today it is widespread and very popular in the cities of the Orientale region of Morocco, specifically in Oujda
The 4th edition of the Blouza Festival will take place from the 7th to 10th of September in Oujda on the initiative of the Eastern Association for Development (AOD), under the theme "Blouza, a cultural tributary of the western Mediterranean"

Initiated in partnership with the Oriental Development Agency, the 4th edition of this cultural event, which aims to perpetuate the heritage of the region, and  to encourage stylists to innovate and to produce quality works.

To highlight the Mediterranean anchorage of culture and heritage of the Kingdom, this edition will be marked by the presence of Moroccan and foreign specialists in the field, giving them the opportunity to discover, according to the AOD, "the intrinsic ties of our common heritage and thus bring an international dimension to our Festival ".
"This Festival will also be an opportunity to promote the work of craftswomen in order to create income-generating activities through the creation of cooperatives and thus highlight the specificities of the Oriental in the framework of advanced regionalisation advocated by the Kingdom" - AOD
The program of the Festival includes discussions on the festival theme, stands to exhibit and market artisan products, and a fashion show that will highlight the work of stylists and craftsmen and women.


"A few decades ago, the Oujdie woman and the Oriental in general were proud to conceive their Blouza themselves and to shape it under different cuts and models. This is the main reason why the Blouza has become a heritage, "says the President of the AOD

He added that the Blouza Oujdia, which had almost been put away in the antique shops and disappeared, is regaining its titles of nobility, thanks to the efforts made in particular in the framework of this event, which made it possible to reinforce the concept Blouza and promote this traditional dress of the city of Oujda and the Region.

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Friday, March 31, 2017

French Jazz in Fez

Concert
JAZZ 90

Tuesday, April 4th at 19h, Hotel Sahrai


On tour in Morocco, the Parisian trio 90 ° brings with it all the ingredients for a journey through time. The programme is a fine mix of cover songs, French music, and the compositions of the trio, tinged with jazz and classical music. Gainsbourg, Chopin, Prévert, Ravel, Ferré ... all delivered with a fresh and lyrical perspective.

JAZZ 90 °
Alexis Pivot, keyboards, Etienne Renard, Double bass and Clément Brajtman, Drums

Clément Brajtman, Drums, Etienne Renard, Double bass andxAlexis Pivot, keyboards

The Fez performance is presented In partnership with the Hotel Sahrai 

Also on tour in the French Institutes of Casablanca, Marrakech and Tetouan.

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Sunday, January 15, 2017

Jazzablanca Festival in April

Casablanca will host the 12th edition of the Jazzablanca Festival from April 8th to 16th at the Anfa racecourse and from April 14th to 16th on the BMCI stage

The French trumpet player Erik Truffaz will be honoured during this 12th edition of the Jazzablanca.

The Truffaz will present his new album to the Casablancan public on February 8 at the Megarama.


Jazzablanca 2017 will take place on three stages and will feature Jazz, Soul, Pop and Rock. Find more information at: http://www.jazzablanca.com/


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Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Dates Announced for 21st Chellah Jazz Festival


The Chellah Jazz Festival in Rabat is scheduled to run from the 22nd to 25th of September. There had been doubts about the festival taking place due to restoration work begun last year by the Ministry of Culture. Thankfully the 2016 festival will finally take place

Yesterday (Tuesday August 10) a statement from the Delegation of the European Union in Morocco gave the festival the green light. The European Delegation organises the festival, in partnership with the Ministry of Culture and the Wilaya of Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaer along with embassies and institutes of other EU member countries.

The 21st edition of the festival will follow the popular format of previous editions, with an early evening performance by a European group, followed by a Moroccan-European fusion. New this year  will be projections "on the walls to allow a wider audience to share the Jazz au Chellah".


The artistic direction this year comes from Sebastian Vidal, the Nice Jazz Festival programmer and Jauk El Maleh, singer, author and composer of specialist percussion, considered the "undisputed father of Dakka jazz".

Organisers say they will announced the festival programme in the next few days.

Please note that the "official festival website" jazzauchellah.com/ has been hacked or colonised and has no festival information.


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Monday, April 25, 2016

Hoba Hoba Spirit Rocks Casablanca

The 16th edition of Jazzablanca has been a huge success and climaxed with the appearance of the rock/fusion legends, Hoba Hoba Spirit
Hayha music for the people!

The group has been pioneers of combining Afro fusion, Gnaoua and reggae. Their lyrics, in colloquial Arabic, French and English, are the rebellious cries of a generation and real kick in the face for the contradictions of Moroccan society.

The group defines its music as "hayha" - a word that roughly translates as "crazy" - but in a good way. Hayha music is often classified, along with Chaâbi, as music of the people.  However, no matter how you describe the genre, it is certainly popular with the thousands of Casaouis (residents of Casablanca) who turned up at the Place Mohammed V on Saturday night for the final Jazzablanca concert.

The festival organisers were ecstatic, saying, "Hoba Hoba Spirit are a megaphone for the young people's identity crisis, and their performances are a real catharsis for the audience with the choruses chanted loudly as they let loose the pent up urban energy".


Prior to the group taking the stage the audience were treated to The Golden Hands, emblematic figures of the Moroccan music scene in the 70s.

Back in 1969, the Golden Hands became famous throughout the country with the hit L’ange et ses vampires (The Angel and his Vampires). This resulted in wider fame, particularly in France, where the band played at Golf Drouot in Paris (then known as the rock temple). They made a comeback a few years ago at the 11th edition of Jazzablanca.


The festival has delivered a week of great music in Casablanca. Performers included Jamie Cullum, Macy Gray, Melody Gardot, Richard Bona, Goran Bregovic as well as Moroccan pop diva,Hindi Zahra.

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Saturday, September 13, 2014

19th Chellah Jazz Festival ~ Opens in Rabat on September 17


The 19th edition of the Chellah Jazz Festival opens the cultural season in Rabat from 17 to 21 September 2014. This major event, dedicated to the discovery of European jazz and to the encounter between European and Moroccan jazz musicians, has become a real gateway of dialogue between the North and the South of the Mediterranean. It hosts 15 bands and 53 musicians coming from 15 European countries and from Morocco, carefully selected for their high musical quality



The festival opens with a Dutch trio, De Jongens Driest (pictured left): Van Strien Janfie: saxophone, Joop van der Linden: trombone and Arno Bakker: sousaphone.

The group are described as perhaps the smallest of the bands that ever made its horns gleam under the sun! Their jazz is powerful and "groovy", inspired by klezmer and Balkan traditions, African highlife and Latin American music.

The festival continues with different sounds and musicians from Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Bulgaria, United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, Finland, Poland, and Spain, together with artists from Morocco.

The huge crowd at the final night in 2013

The artistic directors Majid Bekkas and Jean-Pierre Bissot said: “We have selected these artists for their musical quality but also for their capacity to present on stage an aspect of the strong and engaged identity they have built. Each concert brings a new emotion. Each European jazz-Moroccan music meeting will be a new page of this new musical reading that the Chellah Jazz promotes.”

Since its creation in 1996, the festival has become a fixture of the cultural scene in Morocco. The festival is an initiative of the Delegation of the European Union to Morocco in partnership with the Ministry of Culture, the Wilaya of Rabat Salé and the French Institute in Morocco, together with the embassies and cultural centres of the EU member states

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Friday, July 18, 2014

Chellah Jazz Festival in Rabat this September


European Jazz and Moroccan music will meet again in September at the 19th edition of the Chellah Jazz Festival, which has now become a landmark event of the cultural scene in Morocco. The festival, to take place from 17 to 21 September, was initiated by the European Union in Morocco and is dedicated to the discovery of European jazz and the encounter between European and Moroccan jazz musicians


Ten European and five Moroccan bands will play together at the Festival. Alongside Moroccan musicians, jazz musicians from the Netherlands, Belgium, France, the UK, Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, Greece, Denmark, Sweden, Romania, Portugal, Spain, Finland and Poland will bring their styles and colours to the Festival.

"The European Union in Morocco imagined the Chellah Jazz festival to be the reflection of a cultural partnership between Europe and Morocco, offering musicians from different horizons a single expression platform,” said Rupert Joy, EU Ambassador in Morocco. “Brilliant Moroccan and European artists will share with us again moments of fruitful musical encounters.”

Chellah 2013

Historically, the richness of Moroccan music has always been the target of great jazz figures, to name pianist Randy Weston, probably the first musician to mix jazz with Moroccan music (Tanjah, Polydor Label 1973); percussionist Jauk El Maleh whose various academic experiments are still on the forefront; guitarist Pat Metheny considered as a special guest at Essaouira Gnawa Festival; and many others such as Omar Sosa, Wayne Shorter and recently Archie Shepp who found on the variety of Moroccan instruments and sounds interesting material to produce original jazz. Based on this idea, the festival seeks to sustain the close affiliation between jazz and Moroccan music.


Last year, over 7,000 people enjoyed listening to the music of European guest artists mixed with that of Oum, Bnet Houariyat, Driss El Maaloumi Rashid Karim Kadiri and Zeroual. This musical genre labelled ‘made ​​in Chellah’ is offered every year in a CD.


The festival website is here:  Chellah Jazz  (at the moment no programme is available)


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Monday, September 16, 2013

Tamara Obrovac ~ A Star at the Chellah Jazz Festival

One of the stars of this years Jazz in the Chellah Festival in Rabat was the composer singer and flutist, Tamara Obrovac, from the Croatian city of Pula. She is one of the most impressive artists on the Croatian music scene, and in the past few years she has become very popular due to the influence of the Istrian folk music that has been the creative force of her works. She took time off to chat with The View from Fez


This was the charismatic Tamara's first visit to any African country and she found the 18th Festival de Jazz au Chellah to be a surprise and a delight. The first thing that struck her was the ease of connecting with the audience.  "A concert is always an interaction between the musicians and the audience and here it was obvious that the audience felt the music," she said, "Immediately after the first song and first solo it was clear that the audience was connected."

The second surprise was the size of the audience. "It is rare in jazz to have an audience so large and this was one thousand five hundred people. It was a truly great concert. And the audience was emotional and felt the music – my kind of music."
"My approach towards music went from jazz standards, through my own compositions, to my finding of an original expression by connecting the language of the folk music of my homeland with the rhythms and improvisation typical for jazz, so jazz is my freedom and my roots are my inner truth" - Tamara Obrovac


The first part of the concert was with her quartet and all the music was Istrian inspired.

Istrian folk music is described by Tamara as "particular". "The scale is pentatonic," she explains. "The music has a small range with small intervals and to those unfamiliar with it, it can sound rather heavy."

This untuned music scale makes the Istrian songs unique. The chants are in most cases performed by two singers, singing in thirds, called “na tanko i na debelo” (thin and thick). Two-part singing and playing in the Istrian scale was inscribed in 2009 on the Representative List of the UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

But, as Tamara is quick to point out, if you keep to the traditional form there is no space to do anything new. "So I took the music of the dialect, inspired by the pentatonic scale and transposed it into jazz music. I retain the sense of the melody which reminds one of the Istrian scale and then merge these two forms.  As I say, jazz is my freedom and my roots are my inner truth."

But her work draws on many other influences such as rap. And again she explains. "Modern jazz is the sum of all modern genres. A capable jazz musician can play all the contemporary genres."

She attributes her success to the musicians she works with. "I have many great musicians. They are open and inventive – not closed in their souls. You can’t improvise if you aren’t free. Finding the right musicians took a long time. I tried many people and now when I play with them, something goes out, my musicians are superb – that’s official!"

Rachid Zeroual - "truly gentle and genuine"

The second part of the concert featured a collaboration with the Ney Maâlem ( master flautist) Rachid Zeroual who has been playing the Ney for more than 34 years. "My ancestors were musicians and my family history that binds the music goes back 150 years. Some played the Andalusian music and were part of the royal court and were especially famous orchestra 55. However, I am the only one who's penchant for Ney. While other children preferred other games, the Ney was my favourite pastime. I was five when I touched it for the first time and it has never left me since."

Collaborating with a Moroccan musician was another first for Tamara and one that they accomplished after only two rehearsals. "Such a truly gentle and genuine man. We had an immediate rapport – both on a human and musical level. Rachid had sent me some of his music and I sent him some. It was a challenge for both of us. I had to move my perception to a frame that was not mine. Jazz musicians have the flexibility and our improvisation is at the heart of what we do. It is the classical music of our time."

And the critics covering the festival in Rabat raved: "Tamara Obrovac is an audience-captivating phenomenon. With her trio she brought a different kind of energy and soon had the crowd pleading for more. Obrovac has a phenomenal stylistic range and has the temerity to want to take her trio into any number of moods. She also has willing accomplices in Croatian pianist Matja Dedič, and drummer Krunoslav Levačič,and Slovenian bassist Žiga Golob. Dedič is a phenomenally technically equipped pianist. Imaginative, mercurial, he proved himself always eager to step outside the comfort zone and to try something unexpected. A kindred spirit for John Taylor, Matja Dedič really is quite something." - London Jazz News

Sitting on a rooftop in Fez, Tamara reflected on what she would take away with her from the Moroccan experience. "What remains will be the rhythmical patterns and the way of creating phrases. The phrases of Moroccan music are built in an unusual way – combining the rhythmic and melodic phrases in a new way."


Tamara Obrovac (born in Pula, 1962) is a Croatian ethno jazz singer, flutist, song writer and composer nominated for the BBC Radio 3 World music Award in 2004. Apart from playing with her ensemble Transhistria, Tamara Obrovac is committed to numerous inter-cultural projects, one of which is Istria/Irland (Istra/Irska in Croatian). She composes for ballet and theatre play and composed the music for the feature film What Is a Man Without a Moustache?


Story: Sandy McCutcheon

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Thursday, April 18, 2013

Sufi Jazz Fusion Rocks in Fez




Hamadcha Brotherhood jam session!

Hamadcha and all that jazz! 
An unusual fusion got the crowd rocking at the French Institute in Fez last night. Two musicians from the National Jazz Orchestra of France combined their multifarious talents with Fez's own Hamadcha Sufi musicians.


Matthew Metzger goes all - playing two clarinets simultaneously 

 Jazz musos Matthew Metzger and Sylvain Daniel have been in the city for the past few days workshopping a planned gig at the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music from June 7 to 15. They took time out to give the public a tantalising taste of what is to come. 


Sylvain Daniel on electronic bass

After a jazz intro from the French, the rhythm section of the Hamadcha was led by Fredrick Calmes on an up-turned steel bowl. The rest of the Hamadcha musicians joined in with drums and trumpets; their characteristic chants given a more upbeat tempo by an electronic riff. It served to make the traditional music more accessible to Western ears, and may lead to a whole new audience for this wonderful group.


Silver trumpets were a visual and aural highlight of this excellent concert


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