Rabih Abou-Khalil - Selection

Lebonese born Rabih Abou-Khalil is an artist that straddles both the world and jazz genres seamlessly, forging a unique blend of styles with his unique brand of oriental jazz and he's been doing it for some time, with almost 20 album releases behind him.

It's hard to pick one album that represents the varied nature of his output, which is why this handy compilation "Selection " will prove essential for newcomers.

By and large Rabih's albums are led by the oud, his chosen instrument, which he is the master of and of course inevitably gives the music an instant middle eastern flavour and will usually be complemented by the backbone of bass, drums and percussion. What makes the sound of his recordings, which constantly range in tempo, so unique are the variations of other instrumentation that is present on the recordings. For example throughout his albums the ney makes a regular appearance on more oriental-based albums like "Taraab", "Roots and Sprouts" and "Nafas". Whilst more brass-based leanings with trumpet, clarinet, french horn, tuba, both alto and tenor sax dominating the sound on more jazz flavoured albums like "Cactus Of Knowledge", "Sultans Picnic" and "Blue Camel". The album "Arabian Waltz" featured a string quartet, whilst the duduk (an instrument associated with Armenia and with Djivan Gasparyan) is the focal point on the album "Songs for Sad Women". On the "Journey To the Centre Of An Egg" you will hear a more slow-paced mellow piano-based sound. While 2008's "Em Portugues" introduced a young Fado singer Ricardo Ribeiro to the fray with stunning results.


The vast majority of Rabih's recordings have come on the Enja label with some earlier works appearing on ECM. It's the former output that this compilation concentrates on and you get one track from twelve different albums including his genius solo set "Il Sospiro", so you get a good perspective of what Rabih Abou Khalil's musical vision is all about. He is also a fine live performer, having seen the man in action a couple of years ago.

It's worth pointing out that the artwork on Rabih's albums are more often than not quite beautiful. Take a look here.

To listen to sound samples from "Selection", this seems to be the best place.


To follow are two clips of tracks "Arabian Waltz" and "Blue Camel" both taken from "Selection",and for good measure they are followed by two tracks from the "Songs For Sad Women" album.

Anouar Brahem - Leila Au Pays Du Carrousel

With a simple combination of oud, piano and accordion, this is the mesmerising `Leila Au Pays Du Carrousel' by the very talented Tunisian musician and composer Anouar Brahem taken from the album `Le Pas Du Chat Noir' on ECM.

Anouar Brahem - Vague

This is a clip featuring the music of Anouar Brahem, the Tunisian Oud player and composer, with the track `Vague'. All I will say is that this is a very beautiful piece of music. Enjoy.

Stephan Micus - The Garden Of Mirrors

No long ago I bought a CD by Stephan Micus called "On The Wing", for the simple reason that it looked interesting and that it was on the European Jazz label ECM, a label that specialises in very distinctive and eye-catching artwork. In recent times I have been listening to some of the more left-of-centre ánd "world music" orientated artists on the label especially Dino Saluzzi , Anouar Brahem and Kayhan Kalhor. However on listening to "On The Wing" for the first time I was very disappointed, despite having some very good tracks such as "Gazelle", some tracks rendered the album as a whole almost unlistenable for reasons that would be apparent should you choose to listen to the album in question (The track "Morning Star" being a good example).

The thing about Stephan Micus is that not only does he compose all the tracks on his albums, he also plays every instrument as well, and that could be anything from a 14-string guitar, a sitar to a ney and even his own "voice". You get the picture. German born Micus takes his influences globally. I knew from the moment I became aware of what Stephan Micus was about I had to venture further, and so I did (It took me long enough. His first album was released in 1976!). This led me to "The Garden Of Mirrors" (1997), a very satisfying set indeed. Nine extremely atmospheric pieces with "Gates Of Fire" and "Words Of Truth" being choice tracks which features the likes of steel drums, bowed sinding, tin whistle and a shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute). With a back catalogue of 20 or so albums under his belt, I will no doubt be venturing further into the world of this very unique artist.

You can hear clips from this album here.