Three musical world citizens from three continents, united by the Blues
Three continents, three musical world citizens. Morocco-born Majid Bekkas, Franco-Vietnamese Nguyên Lê and American Hamid Drake have combined their astonishing musicality, their origins and their global experiences to create a captivating live concert program encompassing desert blues, Gnawa trance, Middle Eastern jazz, sixties rock and Far Eastern serenity.
Voice, oud and guembri (bass lute)...electric guitar with a wide spectrum of shimmering timbres...a percussion arsenal between subtlety and physicality - these are the tools of the three world-class, globe-trotting protagonists here. Majid Bekkas's innovations have cast a wholly new light onto the fascinating music and culture of the Gnawa minority in Morocco, and he has also worked with jazz greats such as Joachim Kühn, Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders, and, most recently, with the Magic Spirit Quartet, whose recordings for ACT have built a bridge between Nordic and African sound worlds. Among the great guitarists of our time Nguyên Lê is one of the most exciting and individual personalities, having developed a unique style in which Southeast Asian melodies, complex jazz harmonies and highly virtuoso excursions into rock naturally co-exist. And Chicago-born Hamid Drake, with his intuitive feel for many of the world's percussion traditions, provides an improbably wide range of rhythmic impulses.
The repertoire which the three performed so memorably on 10 November 2024 reflects a tremendous wealth of ideas which fuse and coalesce, from the desert blues three-way conversation of the opening piece to the Gnawa grooves of 'Mrahba' and 'Sidi Bouganga'; from the earthy John Lee Hooker tribute in 'Boom Boom' to the feverish rock ecstasy of the Hendrix classic 'Purple Haze'; from the Asian reflectivness of 'Thang Long' to the fast-forward interplay of 'Tair'.
Three stellar musicians have drawn on their musical heritages - and created a celebration of human kinship which is breathtakingly alive.
Track Listing
Gore Blues Mrahba Boom Boom Ascending Dragon Purple Haze Tair Sidi Bouganga
