Rainy Day on the road
Your commentator will be travelling during the coming week so blog management is in the very capable hands of Mrs Rainy Day. As we will be in parts south and concentrating on arid landscapes, churches and customs, scheduled contributions here will reflect more the state of our library and music collection than the state of world. Unless some cataclysmic event occurs, as happened at this time last year, the keyboard will remain untouched for another seven days.
The iPod has been packed (What journey today is conceivable without it?) and, given the ultimate destination, the music of Anouar Brahem will provide the soundtrack for the trip. His work is "at once an extension and an audacious departure from the tradition of the oud," is how Adam Shatz of The New York Times put it. "Despite his formidable knowledge of the maqarnat, an ornate system of modes that anchors Arabic music, he seldom bases his improvisations directly on the maqams... If every band projects 'an image of coummunity,' as the critic Greil Marcus once suggested, then Mr. Brahem's trio — part takht, part jazz trio, part chamber ensemble — evokes a kind of 21st century Andalusia, in which European and Arab sensibilities have merged so profoundly that the borders between them have dissolved. The image may be utopian, but its beauty is undeniable." Ready? ¡Vámonos!
