Amir ElSaffar Two Rivers Ensemble

Amir ElSaffar Two Rivers Ensemble
Amir ElSaffar, trumpet
Amir Elsaffar

Songs

These are just preview samples. You need a valid account and be logged in to hear the full tracks.

Videos

EPK for the 2015 Album Crisis
These are just preview samples. You need a valid account and be logged in to watch the full clips.
  • country:USA
  • region:New York City
  • style(s):Jazz, Maqam
  • label:Pi Recordings
  • type:Band
  • gender:male
  • instrumentation:instrumental, vocal
  • artist posted by:Alwan For The Arts

Line up

  • Amir ElSaffar (trumpet, santur, vocals)
  • Carlo DeRosa (bass)
  • Nasheet Waits (drums, percussion)
  • Ole Mathisen (tenor saxophone)
  • Tareq Abboushi (buzuq)
  • Zafer Tawil (oud, percussion)

Links

The Two Rivers Ensemble is a sextet of jazz and Middle Eastern musicians that has made innovative strides in in using the maqam modal system to transform the jazz idiom. Deeply rooted in musical forms of Iraq and nearby regions, the music still speaks the language of swing, improvisation and group interaction, and the resultant sound is distinct from other contemporary cross-cultural musical fusions. After 8 years of extensive performing and touring and the release of two critically- acclaimed albums on Pi Recordings, Inana (2011) and Two Rivers (2007), the Two Rivers Ensemble has developed an instinctive ease with ElSaffar’s highly complex music, enabling the band to play with a creativity that transcends pure technical challenge in a style that is rooted in tradition, while creating an entirely new aesthetic. Amir ElSaffar’s latest work with Two Rivers, a piece entitled “Crisis”, was a commissioned piece by Newport Jazz Festival that premiered at the festival in August 2013, which Downbeat Magazine called “certainly the first Middle Eastern-imbued jazz combo at Newport to win a standing ovation for its first song.”

Two Rivers includes Nasheet Waits, one of the most dynamic drummers in jazz who is best known as a mainstay in Jason Moran’s Bandwagon; bassist Carlo DeRosa, whose CD Brain Dance achieved considerable acclaim; Tareq Abboushi on buzuq (long-necked lute) whose CD, Mumtastic, contains his own blend of jazz and Arabic forms; multi-instrumentalist and virtuoso Zafer Tawil, who is one of the most in-demand Arab musician in New York; and tenor saxophonist Ole Mathisen, a master of microtonal playing who contributes beautifully controlled and technically dazzling playing, serving as the perfect foil to ElSaffar on the front line.