Anouar Brahem - Blue Maqams

The Guardian 80

(ECM)

Eight years have passed since oud-improviser and composer Anouar Brahem’s vivid ECM album The Astounding Eyes of Rita, but the silence hasn’t muted the Tunisian maestro’s jazz enthusiasms. This glitzy lineup features his bass-playing soulmate Dave Holland, drums star Jack DeJohnette, and a wild card in the form of the UK’s Django Bates on piano. The result achieves a spellbinding balance between gently melodic Mediterranean song forms and the one-touch rhythmic elasticity and melodic ingenuity of the best jazz. The presence of Bates (producer Manfred Eicher’s idea, Brahem never having heard the English maverick before) is an inspiration, for his lyrical restraint, creative spaciousness, and diverse references. Brahem’s oud often sketches in the themes, sometimes shadowed by the others in dreamy twilight reflections, more often accelerating into languidly swaying nightwalks such as the title track. Spanish-tinged guitar-like jams end in drum flurries, while thumping Holland bass vamps release scintillating jazz breakouts, as on the throbbing Persepolis’s Mirage, with its visionary Bates piano break. It’s a real meeting of hearts and minds.