In this essay, I am going to touch on the different aspects of the form that are of interest both to the performer and to the musicologist.

Those aspects include:

• Compositional details of the form
• Performance practices, their regional characteristics and evolution over time.
• A list of Samais that every performer should know

The Samai form

Naming convention: In Arabic, a typical name of a Samai consists of the word Samai followed by the name of the maqam which the samai explores. Example: “Samai Rast”. Since there could be more than one Samai in a given maqam, the name of the composer is added to the name of the Samai. Example: “Samai Nahawand Masood Jamil”. In some rare cases, a composer would give their Samai a unique name instead of following the naming convention. One example is “Sihr Al-Sharq” instead of “Samai Nahawand Al-Hariri”.
Exercise: Which maqam is “Samai Bayyati Al-Aryan” in and what’s the name of the composer?
Note: In Turkish music, the name of the Maqam comes first and the Turkish name of the form “Saz Samai” follows.

Traditional Uses: Traditionally a Samai appears early in an instrumental or song set. It is part of a series of instrumental pieces that open the set, which may include instrumental pieces in other forms such as Bashraf, Dulab, and Taqaasim. Those instrumental pieces were used to establish the Maqam tonality and relationship with other maqams in the ears of the listeners and singers, and warm the listeners up to the set to come. The singer would typically begin singing soon after the Samai is played.

The Samai Thaqil rhythm: a 10 beat pattern with a 3 2 2 3 subdivision and Dums on beats 1, 6 and 7, and Teks on beats 4 and 8.

The Samai form: A piece in four short movements (each called Khana), each followed by a refrain (called Taslim). The first three movements and the refrain are in the Samai Thaqil rhythm. The fourth is in a contrasting rhythm (most commonly 3 and 6, occasionally 7 and in rare cases other rhythms).

Tonal parameters of the form: Traditionally the first Khana is entirely in the Maqam of the piece, as is the Taslim. I say traditionally because contemporary composers frequently use chromaticism and modulation even in the first Khana. (see the section on modern trends).

The second and third Khanas involve modulation exploring other Maqams. The second Khana stays in the center register, and sometimes explores the bass region. The third Khana ventures into the upper registers. The fourth Khana typically stays in the original Maqam of the Samai. It is often in a lively tempo, sometimes technically demanding, and the energy climax of the entire piece is often achieved in this Khana.

Arabic and Turkish performance practice In the modern period: a comparison

The differences in performance of Samais between Arab and Turkish musicians reflect, for the most part, the audible difference in style between Arab and Turkish art music ensembles. Some differences are unique to Samais, however, namely tempo. Here are the differences that I have observed:

Tempo: Arab musicians typically perform all the 10/8 Khanas in Samais slower than their Turkish counterparts. (In the fourth Khana the speeds are comparable, with Arab performance in the recent period often tending to be a little faster). I compared recordings of 20 Samais performed by Arab musicians, with 20 (different Samais) by Turkish musicians. The tempo range was (eighth note =)90-110 in performance by Arab artists compared to 124-156 in performance by Turkish artists.

Use of percussion: The general tendency is for the Arab percussionist to make extensive use of ornaments and embellishments, and to vary that in a way that interacts with the melodic line, sometimes outlining the form (for example by playing different in the Taslim than in the Khanas).

The general tendency for Turkish percussionists is to play the skeleton, the most basic shape, of the Samai Thaqil pattern, regardless of the melodic line or place in the form.

This is a difference between art-music percussionists in the two styles that does not stop at Samais.

Turkish percussionists also stop when the melody has a rest. This is especially clear at the characteristic phrase endings which occur on the 8th beat in Samais. Arab percussionists tend to continue playing during those.

Melodic ornaments: This is another difference that is not unique to the interpretation of Samais but is rather a general difference in style that is especially prevalent in smaller ensembles. Turkish musicians use fast, fully articulated, usually diatonic, ornaments. Arab musicians use those less frequently, and incorporate other, expression driven ornaments such as: slides, vibratos, grace notes, left hand pizzicato, and, in the case of the Oud, tremolo (Rash) which is virtually non-existent in Turkish Oud style.

Fillers, silences and early birds: Most Turkish interpretations tend to take the rests literally. In a typical Arab ensemble, a musician, two, and sometimes the entire ensemble plays a filler, especially if there is a leap after the silence. Especially common are filling octave and fifth leaps. Early birds fillers that are played at the end of the rest, ahead of the new phrase.

Modern Samai compositions: Contemporary Turkish Samais still adhere fairly strictly to the composition rules as outlined above. Contemporary Arab Samais, however, are a different story. While there are still Samais that are entirely traditional, there are others that push the envelope, typically in terms of tonality. Two examples to illustrate the point.
In “Samai Kurd Dagher” Abdo Dagher added an intro that is not in Kurd (in fact, it is borderline atonal, in the Arabic sense). The Taslim is tonal but it is not in Maqam it is mostly in Bayyati. The other example is “Samai Kurd Shaheen” which features frequent modulations from the start.

A list of Samais every performer of Arabic music should know

• Samai Bayyati, El-Aryan. Featured in many recordings.
• Samai Farah Fazah, Tanburi Jamil. Featured in many recordings, including by Tanburi Jamil
• Samai Kurd, Dagher. Available on “King of Taqasim” recording, in which Dagher plays many of his compositions
• Samai Nahawand, Masood Jamil. Recorded by many, recommended recording: “Turath” by Simon Shaheen which also includes Samai Farahafazah and Samai Kurd Shaheen
• Samai Nawa Athar, Jamil Uweis. Featured in “Remembrances” by Jazayer Ensemble
• Samai HijazKar Kurd, Tatius. Appears in many recordings, including Kudsi Urgener’s Ensemble recording of the works of Tatius
• Samai Mohayyar, Tanburi Jamil. Best recording of the Samai is on the “Yasemin” CD by Necati Celik. The CD is out of print and might not be easy to obtain.

I would like to close this series by touching on some of the unique characteristics of Arab avantgarde cultural activity in the twentieth century with a focus on music.

In my view, one of the most significant differences between Arab and western avantgarde phenomena is the fact that in Arab societies these pioneering works made their way into the mainstream almost instantaneously. Poetry changed from its classic rhymed, metered, measured, symmetry, to prose poetry. The subject matter changed dramatically and became more personal and more immediate (song lyrics being an exception in that they still obsessed with love, almost exclusively). “Modern Poetry” as it became known, had, by the mid twentieth century, constituted the majority of new poetry works.

Musical theater was introduced (almost single handedly by Sayyid Darwish), and other forms of staged musical performance and musical films became very successful within a short period of time. These were influenced, to an extent, by western musical theater. But they also had unique characteristics reflecting the originality of their makers, and the uniqueness of the conditions in which they appeared.

Musical content changed, incorporating instruments, orchestration techniques, and sounds from other cultures, mainly western European tonal 19^th century music.

Experimental, surrealist cinema followed suit. Youssef Shahine, Egyptian filmmaker, produced a large body of works of experimental, surrealist, and unconventional in narrative. The civil war in Lebanon dealt a heavy blow to similar currents in Lebanese cinema.

Returning for a moment to music, it is worth mentioning here two other distinctions from western avantgarde music, which may help explain why the Arab mainstream culture adopted avantgarde music fairly rapidly. The first was that the greatest composers and performers of the twentieth century were involved in it, listened and studied other traditions in depth, and wanted to do something new. More reflective of the spirit of the times, and the social and political changes all around.

The other distinction is that the introduction of new elements was gradual. None of these great composers produced exclusively avantgarde work. None divorced themselves from the tradition. In fact they were all deeply rooted and schooled in it. None of the avantgarde works were exclusive of traditional elements. In fact, the genius of many of these works lied in the perfect blend and seamless transitions between those elements.

The “tradition” of avantgarde in music still continues today, by the way, although other factors limit its success. Factors like the market demand for spectacle in musical performance (mainly one of sexual overtones)- aka the video clip, and attention span depletion and the need for short sentences and short ideas accessible to the general public on first hearing. Interestingly enough, the movement against the stupification of art is not lead exclusively by an educated elite, but also by ordinary people who see the modern video clip oriented music as a symptom of cultural degeneration and see the artistic revolution that took place in the twentieth century as a symptom of the opposite, the spiritual and cultural awakening of the masses.

]]> http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/84/feed 2 http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/76 http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/76#comments Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:59:47 +0000 http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/?p=76 Having received a call for submissions for essays on Arab avantgarde, I thought this one was just down my alley..

Thinking about the subject, the questions that seem the most urgent to answer are not about the Arab avantgarde music movement itself just yet, but rather questions about how to have a discussion about Arab avantgarde music. In fact, the questions touch on some of the vague aspects of the term not necessarily in relation to Arab avantgarde.

To begin with, how do we distinguish between avantgarde and innovation that is a natural product of evolution over time of any cultural activity?

When does the avantgarde status of something expire?

And then what happens to it?

Why do we still use the term avantgarde to describe music that was so in the fifties, but can now be learned in universities? Doesn’t the possibility of getting a degree in an art form from a respectable accredited university mean that that art form can no longer be considered avantgarde?

In retrospect, can impressionism in painting considered to have been avantgarde? How about photography, when first introduced into the world of visual arts, was it considered avantgarde then? Should it have been? If not, when is a new art form considered avantgarde and not just simply, a new art form? When should a new way to practice an existing art be considered avantgarde?

Now more specifically to the subject at hand. Arab avantgarde is not the same as Arabic avantgarde music. Which discussion should we have? Arab avantgarde music discusses avantgarde music made by people of Arab ethnicity. Arabic avantgarde music, means, I suppose, avantgarde music made by practitioners of Arabic music, as departure from more traditional Arabic music. So in that respect, Arab avantgarde musicians have to be of Arab ethnicity but they don’t have to know anything about Arabic music nor be able to play any Arabic musical instruments. On the other hand, Arabic avantgarde music practitioners don’t have to be Arab but have to be trained in Arabic music.

We haven’t even begun to discuss geography.

In this new post series I will try to answer some of the questions above and, with some luck, find a way to discuss Arab and Arabic avantgarde music.

]]> http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/76/feed 1 http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/73 http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/73#comments Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:49:31 +0000 http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/73 Can the sound of the passing time, thousands of years of culture, history, and stories of people and places, journeys, dreams, loves, conflicts, can all those be told in music? Can they be told in one piece of music? Can they be told in one piece of music that lasts a few minutes (seven minutes and six seconds to be precise)?

In the third track (maqam bayyati) of Shaheen and Racy’s “Taqasim”, this is accomplished.

I got this CD almost 15 years ago. Since then, I have listened to it more than any other. We are blessed that we live in a time when recording is possible. When we read accounts of the beauty of someone’s music, we can try to imagine. But how can one imagine music that is unimaginably powerful.

In Taqasim, especially in the third, 7 minutes (and 5000 years) long track, a lot is packed. Simon’s, melodies, tone, and technique, even after 15 years of listening (and knowing the thing by heart), continue to be exciting. New details emerging with each listening. As if the performers secretly rerecord it anew every week or so.

So what makes it work so well? I have repeatedly dwelt on that. Over the years the answers change.

At first, I thought it was technique (isn’t that all we think about when we’re young?). Then it was the melodies. Then it was the recording quality and clarity combined with melodies and technique.

As, despite our best efforts to the contrary, we mature, our ears do too.

It is now clear to me, that he who wants to master the sounds, must also master the silences between them. The music of “Taqasim” stays alive and relevant, because the performers breathed their life into it. The variations in dynamics, pulse, pick technique are at times subtle and at others startling, but they are always natural. The melodies are at times lyrical and at others anxious, and pained. But they are always immediate.

Instrumental music is music where the listener gets to fill in the lyrics, silently, and then revise and re-revise. Millennia can thus be distilled into minutes, and countless stories find home in a jewel case.

1. Simplification of the definition of maqam therefore not recognizing some of the characteristics that distinguish different maqams sharing the same scale. As a result, many maqams that share the a scale are now considered one maqam.
2. Maqams that are no longer in use are omitted from theory books.
3. Not recognizing intonation details rendering several different maqams as identical.

Let us examine each category and study some examples.

Simplification of the definition of maqam

There is a general tendency to teach all or, at least, some maqams simply as scales. Not only that, but there is a general tendency to theorize that each maqam has one scale associated with it, not more. That is not in keeping with the spirit of maqam based music. Here are a few examples of this trend to simplify.

1. Ignoring Sayr (characteritic melodic movement) in a maqam. Some maqams have identical intervals but are different in their melodic progression (starting region, emphasis on specific regions or pitches, cadences, etc..) For example, let us compare the two maqams Huzam and Rahat Al-Arwah. In the past, the maqams were considered different because of a different melodic progression (see example). Traditionally Rahat Al-Arwah had always been recognized to have a B half flat tonic while Huzam had a tonic of E half flat. But they are not merely two transpositions of the same maqam. Notice that both Mashaqah and other theorists have variations on the definition of huzam. But in none of those variations is Huzam identical in Sayr to Rahat Al-Arwah according to the “old” theory. Therefore teaching Rahat Al-Arwah and Huzam are merely different names of the same maqam when transposed to different keys ignores the real difference between them (Arabic music, after all, doesn’t recognize maqams transposed to different keys as different maqams by virtue of the transposition) which is the Sayr. It is worth noting here that Sayr should be regarded as a general architecture that shows regions visited and/or emphasized and directions of motion in specific situations as opposed to exact phrases to be played.
   
   

2. Another example of the simplification of maqam definition is maqam Farah-Fazah (Ferahfeza in Turkish). I agree with the view that this is an Ottoman maqam. In fact, some of my Turkish informants commented that this is a maqam that was conceived by Tanburi Cemil (Jamil) Bey. I couldn’t find any documentation of this. However, I don’t read Turkish, and have little access to Turkish sources (I rely on the generosity of Turkish friends). Since it would be reckless to discredit the claim that this maqam was conceived by Tanburi Cemil without consulting with the Turkish literature, I would just leave it here, and hope that someday someone would find this post and give some information. At any rate the problem with Farah-Fazah is not who first conceived of it.

   In its Ottoman definition (as per “Turk Musikisi Nazariyati ve Usulleri”, by Kudum Velveleleri) Farah-Fazah is a compound maqam: a maqam associated with the scales of more than one maqam. Per Velveleleri, maqam Farah-Fazah is a descending maqam that contains the maqams of Busalik on G, Ajam on B-Flat, and Bayati on D. Turkish classic compositions in this maqam follow this recipe. Salim Al-Hilu’s work on Arabic Music Theory (Al-Musiqa Al-Nathariyya) recognizes the Ajam aspect of it. More modern teachings simply regard it as Nahawand from G. Again regarding it as a different name for the same maqam only due to transposition and not as a maqam of a different nature. Notice also that in its Turkish definition, the maqam is not based on Nahawand from G, but on Busalik from G. Busalik is another maqam that in modern Arabic theory was lumped into the Nahawand conglomerate as another name for Nahawand on D (as opposed to a maqam which shares a scale but is different in Sayr).

3. Maqam Najdi Sika, is no longer mentioned in modern literature because it is also considered to be identical to Sika. The difference between the two is that Najdi Sika emphasizes the upper register, and resolves to the tonic only in cadences or ends of movements. Since the distinction of emphasis areas was dropped from maqam definition, this is no longer its own maqam.

Maqams that are no longer in use

A few examples mentioned in Mashaqah that I haven’t encountered in modern literature and know of no compositions that use them: Awj Khurasan, Shurouqi, Maa-Rana.

Ignoring intonation details which eliminate certain maqams

Case in point. Maqam Sika Rumi which I hadn’t heard of until the summer of 2006 when Prof. Jihad Racy introduced his composition Samai Sika Rumi. This maqam is similar to Sika except for the fact that it’s tonic is sharper than the traditional E half flat tonic of Sika. Ignoring the intonation difference between the two tonics (and possibly some Sayr details) would render Sika Rumi identical to Sika. The sound of the two maqams, by the way, is extremely different. Sika Rumi is the most ethereal sounding maqam I know of.

So how many maqams are there? Between fourty and four hundred (or more) depending on how you look at it..

Until you open the next book.. The cheap photocopies won’t bother you much. But the maqam information.. As if they’re talking about an entirely different civilization.

How can we make matters worse? As if we already had a true and well researched and documented way to teach maqams that is too complicated, now many music schools are going for simpler ways to teach maqams. In other words, if you are tired of learning Arabic music theory using the traditional “rigorous” and “complex” approach, you now have a choice. You can study diet-maqams. I have one book of diet-maqams.

I am venting because as I am working on my book, I had a few questions about a maqam. I opened six different theory books and got.. Four different answers. Two never really addressed the maqam in any serious detail. So I am referring to the repertoire. Analyzing 19th and early 20th century compositions trying to fish for details.

Also annoying is the fact that it is evident that these books were written by people who actually never read a music theory book. That’s fair enough. It’s an oral tradition. But if you’re going to write a text book, you’ve got to think pedagogy before cheap photocopies of palaces and ornaments.

How did music start? Why do we play music? What was the first music like? Was it invented by a child or an adult? Was it invented in daytime or nighttime? Was it improvised or composed? Why do we still improvise? Where is music going? Why are there so many different kinds of music?

I am not sure information is available for anyone to answer most, if any, of these questions. The process of thinking about the answers, however, is interesting. This is a mental exercise..

I suggest we call the birthday of music the day when someone decided to make a sound for the sake of hearing that sound. It is quite possible that sound may have been used before then for the purpose of repelling predators, or serve some other practical function. But I would like to consider that the moment that the switch was made to making sound without any practical end in mind as the birth moment of music.

Was it a child or a grownup that invented music? We can’t really tell, but we can take a guess. I would guess that it was a child. Perhaps it because grownups were too busy trying to hunt and gather, make and maintain shelter, and defend the group. More importantly, however. Children seem to have always had more of a license to play than adults. Was it invented in the daytime or nighttime? If we accept the guess that children invented it, then my guess for this question is daytime. Why? That’s probably when children played and grownups did grownup things like gather berries, and kill animals.

It may, on the face of it, seem simple to answer whether the first music was composed or improvised. One is tempted to answer that it was improvised because before there was music there certainly were no composers. Or were there? What if the child was imitating the sound of something else, like the rhythmic sound of someone crushing something. What if the first music wasn’t hitting wood against wood, but was dragging a branch on the ground. What if it was trying to imitate the sound of the wind or a creak. What if the first music was the creak? A child sat daily by the creak and listened to the sound of water against pebbles. It was music to his ears. What if the first musician was also a composer and it was water?

I now regret writing in my master’s thesis that the first music was improvised, because if there was no music before it then there certainly couldn’t have been composers. Did I leave that in the thesis or did I take it out? It could still be true. We’re only guessing.

If the first music was not played, but heard, and the first musician was not man but nature, and it was the second musician who was human. What was the first human music like? An imitation? How soon before the human musicians switched from trying to imitate to trying to produce new music? Was that some sort of a stone age avantgarde? Was it in the stone age or before? Or after? Was there a continuity in the musical heritage? When was the first musicologist born? Did people do concerts or was all music participatory in the beginning?

And what was the purpose of playing music? When and why did it turn from child’s play to something that eventually lead to Wagner, Umm Kulthoum and the Beatles?

Luckily, I have a guess here. At some point, a child or group of children were making sounds and some grownup was moved by it. That was the decisive moment. Someone was so moved by music, in fact, that they wanted to be able to experience it again.

But what happened next? Did the first music appreciator want to become a musician herself or did she just want to listen? Chopin etudes and two digit over two digit polyrhythms did not exist then, and it couldn’t have been that hard to get into conservatories. Everyone could have become a musician, but did they? Were there any music detractors? People who thought it a silly waste of time and perfectly good firewood. Was music invented before fire or after it?

When was the first orchestrator born. You know, the person who decided what the wood blocks would do, and what the branches would do, and what the shouters would do? Shouters? When did the human voice become an instrument and were the first singers difficult to deal with? When was the first diva born? When was the first time someone decided to stand before a performing crowd and waive his hand expecting that everyone would follow his directions? Did they follow his directions? Did they make fun of him? Did they hold rehearsals where he got mad and kicked people out of the his orchestra? Did he work with composers? Was he a composer himself? Did they all have fun? Who had more fun the musicians or the audience? Was there an audience or was everyone in the tribe performing?

These are serious questions. Useless. But serious. When was the first useless question about music asked? Was asked by a musicologist, a critic, or a philosopher? When was the first un-appreciated composer born? You know, the first one who was a genius but no body knew it? Did they know it after his death, or did he compose and die without anyone taking notice?

Before music paid enough, did all musicians have a day job?

Finally, a question I can answer. The answer, of course, is maybe. Maybe some of them where married to someone else who put the food on the table.

When was the first composition commissioned? What for? Who was the first person to become rich from music?

If we are to ever be able to tell the true and complete story of music we have to answer all those questions, and the questions that I haven’t thought of, and the questions that will arise from the answers, and the questions that will arise from those, etc..

But why is it important to know? Does it matter what music sounded like ten thousand years ago? Fifty?

What if it was great music? Better than anything we now know. Someone is going to roll their eyes at this one: Better than those magnificent orchestra hits? Better than the voice of Umm Kulthoum turning intervals into heartbeats. Better than the John Coltrane’s anguished saxophone prayers? Who knows? Maybe there was something better. It’s not as if the music of humanity only becomes better with time. One only needs to listen to Arabic pop music to exclaim that what was, arguably, the greatest century in the history of Arabic music was immediately followed by what is, arguably, the worst.

Was that really the greatest century in the history of Arabic music? And when was it that people started thinking of music against the passing of time? Time is always part of music. That’s rhythm. But does music have rhythm? Not within a composition, but bigger, higher rhythm. The rhythm of the life of music. Is music a living thing?

Matar’s exquisite virtuosity and the energy of his performance are captivating. His genius is most glaring in the perfection of his improvised phrases. It is a very fine balance between what is familiar and accessible on the level of tradition, what is familiar and accessible on a deeper human level, and what is unfamiliar. Our familiars make it easy for us to remain engaged, allowing him to pass his subversive musical messages.

Lebanese buzuq master, Matar Muhammad died at 56 in 1995. Is that an age in which to die?

The CD is called “Tribute to a Master of the Buzuq” and is under the Inedit label.

Matar in Arabic means rain.

By the way. I didn’t count prepositions, “or” or “and” and neither should you.

MUSIC THEORY TERMS

• Arabic Maqam: Tonalmode consisting of one or more scales and rules governing melodic progression and cadences
• Maqamat: Plural of Maqam
• Jins: A set of consecutive scale degrees notes, the building block of Maqamat
• Qarar: A note an octave lower than a given pitch
• Jawab: A note an octave higher than a given pitch
• Arabic Iqa’a: Rhythmic mode consisting of meter and a specific pattern of low and high pitched strokes
• Iqa’at: Plural of Iqa’ a
• Quarter Tones: Microtonalities resulting from dividing the whole step into several microsteps (compared to two semitones in western music)
  
• Ornaments: Adding notes, expressions, articulations, and/or modifying rhythms in a melody line, and/or during rests
• Embellishments: Typically in a percussion instrument context, playing an iqa’a with additional strokes than the basic pattern, to add spice

ARABIC MUSICAL FORMS

• Taqsim: Non-metric instrumental modal improvisation emphasizing modulation and lyrical melodic lines
• Samai: An A R B R C R D R musical form. All movements but D are in Samai Thaqil Rhythm
• Samai Thaqil: A 10 beat rhythmic pattern in 3, 2, 2, 3 subdivision, used frequently in classical Arabic music
• Mawwal: A pre-composed poem set to an improvised melody, musically a similar concept to taqasim
• Mawawil: Plural of Mawwal

OUD SPECIFIC TERMS

• Risha (aka risheh): Pick used to pluck oud strings. Historically made of feather or animal shell or bone, now mostly plastic
• Awtar: Plural of watar
• Watar: String, and/or double unison-tuned course. Oud has six Awtar
• Rash (oud): Tremolo, rapid bi-directional risha strokes
• Qars (pinching): Left hand pizzicato, plucking the strings with left hand fingers
• ‘Aqf: Qars

I was noticing that the post “As The Hard Times Hit” is quite popular. Another reason for listening to that CD. Music is flexing its muscles against the forces of nature and modern life, and it is winning. At least for now..

I continue to break the geographic and chronological order of the repertoire series and would like to recommend a few other CDs for a day like this:

Simon Shaheen’s “Taqasim”. This CD is so popular that it needs no introduction but I will introduce it anyway. Simon’s oud taqasim are absolutely fabulous. In them you hear the 6000 years history of taqasim, as well as perhaps their future. Simon’s technique is perfect, his tone is perfect. The CD features the contrasting sound of the buzuq played by Prof. Ali Jihad Raci, great buzuq and nay player, and musicologist. Simon has the ability to be both a traditionalist when playing in a traditional context, and a contemporary musician of the world blending jazz and Latin music in his compositions (as was demonstrated by the 11 grammy award nominated “Blue Flame”).

Then there is Abdu Dagher’s “King of Taqasim” album. A little harder to find, but a must seek out gem. The CD features Dagher’s most memorable compositions, all of which he uses as a vehicle to launch into improvisations at an orbit 80 miles above the atmosphere. In his extremely creative taqasim one hears Africa’s modes, rhythms, twentieth century Cairo’s life forces, as well as Dagher’s unique spirit.

Finally, when the going gets tough there is always Ziad Rahbani’s “Bil-Afrah”. Recorded in Beirout as the civil war was beginning, the CD featured eleven of Lebanon’s greatest artists who happened to belong to all the different sects and religions. As the artificial divisions become pronounced and violent again in Lebanon, one hopes that this time the spirit of “Bil-Afrah” will win, and the country will not fall into another senseless war.