Psalms from Palestine

Paul Hughes-Smith reviews a mesmerising new CD from Khaled Jubran

Many will remember the wonderful benefit concert that John Williams and Khaled Jubran gave for PSC this February at St James Church, Piccadilly. Much of the material that Khaled played at this concert was from his recent suite of compositions ‘Psalms’ (Mazamir) and this has now been fully recorded on a CD of the same name released in August and produced by the Al Urmawi Center for Mashreq Music, founded in 2002 by Khaled himself.

Although he has immersed himself for many years in the traditions of classical Arab music with its maqamat or modes as the underlying structure, like several other contemporary players of the ‘ud (Arab lute), Khaled has felt the need to break out from the narrow confines of this ancient tradition. Tarab, a difficult concept to translate into English, is also essential to this tradition, representing the ecstatic feeling and emotional experience produced by listening to such music. It  also began to be used in relation to the very music itself so that people refer to the ‘art of Tarab’, a shorthand expression for the predominantly secular art music of the Arab world.

What Khaled Jubran has tried to do in these pieces for mainly solo ‘ud and buzuq (the Arab longneck lute with metal strings) is carry this concept further by increasing the range of emotions produced beyond simple ecstatic joy or sorrow. ‘What about hope, anxiety, despair and frustration?’ he asks in his liner notes to the CD and it is not very difficult to work out the background and motivation for such questions. Two Intifadas and the constant pressures and difficulties of life in the Occupied Territories have played havoc not only with the everyday life of musicians and artists trying to make a living and carry on the artistic traditions of the region, they have had a huge impact on the emotions and intellectual thought that they bring to any composition or other artistic endeavour.

Hearing these wonderful compositions with their forceful and insistent rhythms and breathless climaxes, it is impossible not to be affected by the emotions that engendered them. There is plenty of anger, frustration and despair expressed here and for this reason it is not always an easy listening experience. The less commonly played buzuq with its metal strings is particularly adept at portraying some of these harsher emotions but Khaled’s playing is capable of great tenderness as well.

As with all traditional Arab music of this nature, it really repays to play this CD several times to appreciate the nuances and get inside what Khaled is trying to do. It is not an entirely solo album, however, with a bass buzuq (Tamer Abu Ghazaleh) adding an additional polyphonic voice and percussion, zarb and daff (Houman Pourmehdi) giving rhythmic support on two tracks. In fact the sound of the buzuq which comes from the same family as the Turkish saz and Iranian tar coupled with the use of the percussion and the vocal by Rabea Jubran on the track ‘Blue Dive’ gives some of the album a Persian or Turkish feel. Indeed the first piece is entitled ‘Isfahan’ (based on the maqam   ‘ Isfahan’  listed in a treatise by the 13^th century al-Urmawi who gave his name to Khaled’s centre).

The recording is crisp and detailed, though it struggles sometimes with the denser textures of two buzuqs. For anyone who is interested in following this new and original direction that Palestinian and indeed Arab music is taking, I can thoroughly recommend ‘Psalms’; but do remember to give it your full attention – you will be well rewarded.

Khaled’s CD can be bought via PSC, for £10: phone 0207 7006192 or send a cheque to PSC, Box BM PSA, London WC1N 3XX.

Drop quote -

“Hearing these wonderful compositions, with their forceful and insistent rhythms and breathless climaxes, it is impossible not to be affected by the emotions that engendered them”