Amir ElSaffar Navigates Uncharted Blue Notes On 'Alchemy'

By KEVIN WHITEHEAD
Originally published on Mon November 4, 2013 2:01 pm
Trumpeter Amir ElSaffar grew up near Chicago, playing jazz trumpet. In the early 2000s, while in his mid-20s, he began investigating the music of his Iraqi heritage, studying in Baghdad and with expatriate musicians in Europe. Then he began combining the two.

ElSaffar's new album Alchemy is a step forward in defining and refining his concept. A couple of his earlier albums featured what struck me as an uneasy mix of jazz and traditional Iraqi instruments. It was as if the trumpeter were still digesting his influences.

Alchemy was written for a straight jazz quintet. But ElSaffar brings all he knows about Iraqi rhythm patterns of strong, weak and silent beats, and about the maqamat — traditional scales built on narrow intervals, and the melodic patterns that go with them. A maqam colors a performance the way the blues scale tints the blues. The extra challenge is that the notes may lie between the ones for which trumpet and saxophone are designed; the players have to improvise on those scales. Among hip New Yorkers, Dan Weiss is the go-to drummer for integrating complex global rhythms into limber jazz time. He and bassist Francois Moutin warmed up for this stuff playing Rudresh Mahanthappa's cross-cultural music.

Negotiating those Iraqi microtones led Amir ElSaffar to also try on a quarter-tone scale of 24 notes to the octave; it's a way to reconcile or split the difference between Western and Eastern tuning systems. This leads him to some colorful harmonies — some newly charted blue notes.

In "Quartal," in particular, ElSaffar and tenor saxophonist Ole Mathisen play those quarter tones so precisely, they make a freshly tuned piano sound exotic. Eastern scales pose special problems for pianists stuck with the same old 12 notes, but John Escreet compensates using dissonant harmony and the power of suggestion. His solos often reflect the sound of the Iraqi santur. That's a zither played with small hammers, which is basically what a piano is.
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MUSIC AND MORE BY TIM NILAND

Amir ElSaffar is an Iraqi-American trumpeter and vocalist. He is also a skilled interpreter of Iraqi maqam, which he sings and plays on the santur. Inana builds on those concepts influenced by Middle Eastern music, and improvised jazz music. The first eight tracks of the album make up the Inana Suite, named after and inspired by the ancient Middle Eastern goddess, whom inspired some of the compositions on this album.

ElSaffar is joined on this multi-cultural adventure by a group he calls The Two Rivers Ensemble, composed of highly-skilled, creative musicians: Nasheet Waitson drums, Carlo DeRosa on bass, Tareq Abboushi on buzuq and saxophonist Ole Mathisen. The music deftly combines jazz and Middle Eastern music in a unique way, finding common ground in improvisation on the opening tracks, “Damuzi's Dream" and “Venus, the Evening Star" which evoke desert landscapes with the combination of plucked instruments, trumpet and ricocheting drumwork.

This becomes even more passionate in the suite that follows, “Inana's Dance" which develops in multiple parts, using spaciousness and patience which allow the music to develop organically. This natural development is also clearly stated on the lengthy and episodic “Journey to the Underworld" which reveals its mysteries slowly and evolves into an evocative suite of its own. ElSaffar's studies in both jazz and ethnic music have placed him in good stead to carve out a unique place in the current improvised music. His music and musicial concept is clearly evolving, and this is a very exciting development.

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