Just saw this Tunisian guy, <b>Dhafer Youssef</b>, at the London jazz Festival this week, performing with a great bunch of Norwegian nu-jazzers - including an amazing trumpeter and singer called Arve Henriksen - he makes the trumpet sound like an Indina flute among other things - and can sing from operatic highs to growling lows - just awesome, plus they had guitarist Eevind Aarset with them - who's also amazing. If you get a chance to check out Dhafer he's a truly incredible musician - he plays oud (which is essentially a 12 string fretless guitar!) brilliantly but he also has one of those most powerful and affecting voices in any musical genre; it's full of sadness and pain - which, like a good blues singer, is very theraputic to listen to.
The album of his I should highlight is called <b>'Electric Sufi'</b> and features both <b>Doug Wimbish and Will Calhoun</b>, it's a mix of traditional sufi sounds and more funky, jazzy, dubby-loops - but live it's just awesome stuff.
Think Micheal Manring's 'Adhan' meets ambient jazz/indian improv with stunning voice and guitar loops - and some deep, funky bass - hella cool.
On a different band altogether, if any of you have yet to hear The Cinematic Orchestra - The Man With The Movie Camera (LP) - please, do youselves a favour and check it out - it's just stunning.
Right - I hope that give at least a couple of you some new music to check out.
