Virtuoso oud, and snappy flamenco guitar blend with the beats of finger drums as
author: World Music Central, Patricia Herlevi
Technically, Spain's Tarik and Julia Banzi's Alchemy is not an Early Music recording, but it fuses Spanish medieval cantigas with flamenco as well as, Moorish and Arabic influences. The music of medieval, renaissance and baroque eras would have incorporated musical influences found along the great Silk Road, North Africa and other regions of the world that Europeans had access. When you view a map of the world, you can see the close proximity of Africa to Spain and Italy. And if you travel back to ancient times, especially in Spain, you will find a melting pop of Jewish, Muslim and Christians along with pagans. People were nomadic, kingdoms fell, empires fell, regions changed hands and explorers were out conquering new worlds so all of this must have left its signature on early European music.
Oud player and multi-instrumentalist Tarik and flamenco guitarist Julia Banzi practice this sort of alchemy in their musical endeavors. Their recording, Alchemy fuses ancient and modern music as well as, African and European music. Medieval cantigas appear along side music composed for Federico Garcia Lorca's poetry. Arabic-style vocals and percussion merge with flamenco rhythms and Spanish folkloric vocals sung with great passion by Virtudes Sanchez. Virtuoso oud, and snappy flamenco guitar blend with the beats of finger drums as sacred and secular worlds collide on this seductive recording.
Composer and author Ted Gioia explains it better than I can in the liner notes. "For many of us, this fusion is a relatively new development. But for the musicians of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, it is a fact of life, a reality over a thousand years old. Here the sonic genealogy draws from a dazzling panoply of root sources --Arabic, Castilian, Jewish, Romany and African, among others." And yes, this musical alchemy dazzles in the way that a long-awaited sunny day does for people residing in a cloudy Seattle. To call this music an exotic tapestry might sound cliché because it is a phrase that us journalist have used many times to describe fusion music, but once again, this phrase works. Better yet, pick up the CD and listen to the consummation of the old and new worlds. And take the musicians' advice and read Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist while listening to the CD. Follow your bliss and transform your life.
http://worldmusiccentral.org/article.php/20060618221612642
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Amazing
author: marcus w pringle
I know nothing about the culture, but I do know beautiful music when I hear it, this is it!
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AWESOME!!!!!
author: Lori Statton
I bought this as a birthday present for a friend just because of the title... the universe must have led me to this cd because after hearing it, I am completly stunned at the beauty and sensitivity of the music. I have never heard anything like it!
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entertaining, interesting, and talented
author: Beverly Hills Outlook
Moorish Music from the Arabs and the Jews
By Cynthia Citron
Beverly Hills Outlook
June 17, 2004
The John Anson Ford Amphitheatre has begun its outstanding summer season of music from around the world. On June 13th their offering was "Al Andalus to Jerusalem: Levantine Festival, presented by the Levantine Cultural Center.
In earlier times the Levant was comprised of the territory that is now Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, but the Levantine Cultural Center, founded here in Los Angeles in 2001, claims the territory from Morocco in the west to Afghanistan in the east and from southern Greece to Kurdish Iran. Their purpose, they say, is to promote a "pan-cultural conversation beyond borders, passports, and dogmas." And on June 13th they did just that.
Israeli composer Yair Dalal played oud and violin, accompanied by Yuval Ron, also on oud, Yegish Manoukian, who played an assortment of hauntingly melancholy flutes and clarinet, and Jamie Papish on the tablah, a vase-shaped drum made of colorfully decorated metal. They were accompanied by Najwa Gibran, whose powerful voice did ample justice to the trills and wails of Arabic music. This group was also joined by Kimberley Michelle, who performed a series of acrobatic strip-tease belly dances.
The second half of the show featured Tarik & Julia Banzi, the Al-Andalus group, which was more entertaining, more interesting, and more talented. It consisted of Tarik Banzi on oud, ney, and vocals, Julia Banzi on flamenco guitar, viola, and percussion, Rasgui Boujemaa on kamanja, ney, percussion, and vocals, and Charlie Bisharat, a star all on his own, on violin. A Grammy Award-winning violinist who often sits in with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and accompanies pop, jazz and classical artists, Bisharat was awesome and worth the price of admission all by himself.
Al-Andalus was joined by classical flamenco dancer Ana Montes, who was also spectacular, especially in one number where she wielded a huge Spanish shawl as if it were her dance partner.
The music was soulful, atonal, and sometimes jarring. It came from Persia, Israel, Moorish Spain, and other points around the Arabic world and was played on a gorgeous assortment of ethnic instruments: flamenco guitar, oud (a variation of a lute), ney (a reed pipe), kamanja (a form of fiddle), woodwinds, percussion, castanets, and daff (tambourine).
Since the songs from their CD "Illumination" were sung in a variety of languages that were not identified, I can't say much about them. Suffice it to say they were much appreciated by the audience (the amphitheater was nearly full), who sang along, hummed along, and clapped in accompaniment to the music, which they obviously recognized.
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