Album Notes

Mizna features Jeff Rees and Bruce Beaton, from Gypsy Caravan (who have released eight CDs), the tribal bellydance troupe, with Doug Shafer and JD Devros. From Portland, Oregon, this is the first CD from this magical combination of musicians. Beautiful to listen to and great to dance to.

"...the music is so beautiful, so sort of sufi and mystical..." nina from australia

Mizna performs a stylized blend of the music of North Africa, Spain, India, the Middle and Near East, with a contemporary American sensibility. Both lively and thoughtful, this group evokes the lonely campfire of the hejira as well as the silken wealth of the caravanserai.
With a large assortment of horns and strings providing the melodic components, backed by an equally impressive array of drums and percussion instruments, the songs range from pensive and moody to bouyant uptempo tunes. Mizna plays all original compositions on a variety of traditional instruments, such as the Egyptian mijwiz, Turkish zurna and saz, African djembe and the Indian naal.

With the resurging interest in this dance style, the Gypsy Caravan have toured throughout the Pacific Northwest, around North America, Europe, and Australia from their home base in Portland, Oregon. Gypsy Caravan, and Jeff's side band, Mizna, have released nine CDs, the latest being Remarkably Remixed, of their original eclectic, middle-eastern influenced music. Instruments such as the zurna, djembe, dumbek, mijwiz, and various percussion now are remixed to kick it up.Inspired by the improvisational dance style of the tribal bellydancers, the music can be mesmerizing and hipnotic, or energetic and rockin'.
This tribal troupe produced an award-winning documentary film, Tribal Travels, and eight Tribal bellydance instructional DVDs. The director, Paulette Rees-Denis, has had her first book, Tribal Vision, published in June 2008, by Cultivator Press.
www.gypsycaravan.us