Artists
who's who and who's doing what?Ahoar
Line up
- Bassem Hawar (djoze (Iraqi knee violin))
- Dietmar Fuhr (double bass)
- Free Desmyter (jazz piano)
- Saad Thamir (voice, percussion (darabouke, tar))
- country:Iraq
- region:Orient
- style(s):Jazz Maqam
- label:Heaven and Earth
- type:Band
- gender:male
- instrumentation:instrumental, vocal
- artist submitted by:
Ahoar is the name adopted by two Iraqi classical-traditional concert musicians, a Belgian jazz pianist and a jazz double bassist from Germany. By combining two very different styles of music and venturing into new musical territory in this project, the four musicians and musicologists perform a daring, unique experiment.
The name Ahoar also refers to the marsh country in southern Iraq, in the delta of Euphrates and Tigris. As in this delta the joining up of the two rivers brings forth fertile ground, here the merging of western jazz sounds with classical Iraqi maqam music creates a rich world of sounds. It is astonishing how effortlessly the four performers seem to establish common ground.
The classical Iraqi maqam is an ancient form of music which has undergone hardly any structural change in the course of the past centuries. Maqam is the art of melody, which develops from fixed tetrachords (sequences of four notes). In its original form, it has no harmonies. The music gains its brillance through nothing but the singer's and the instrumentalists' melodicrhythmic inventinveness, virtuosity and intensity. Under the living circumstances in today's Iraq, the art of maqam has died out almost entirely.
Ahoar combine maqam music with lyrical jazz sounds, thus lending it a harmonic context. The linking of basically quite diverse music forms brings forth a new form of its own right, deeply touching in its intensity. It intrigues through its peculiar combination of ancient rhythms and inspiring creativity with melodic and harmonic improvisations.
Ahoar is winner of
"creole Award for World Music from Northrhine-Westfalia 2006"
and winner of "creole Award for World Music from Germany 2007".
Links
Images
