Anouar Brahem - Biography
Oud player Anouar Brahem is a master of his instrument and has done much to make oud a vital part of the world music landscape with his many albums for ECM that combined avant-garde jazz with traditional Arab tonalities. He is also a prolific composer of music for film, ballet, and a noted player of traditional music.
Brahem was born in 1957 in Halfaouine a neighborhood in the Medina of Tunis. His parents loved music and encouraged his early attempts to play oud. He started oud studies at the Tunis National Conservatory of Music when he was 10, under the master Ali Sriti. By 15, Brahem was playing with traditional orchestras and taking private lessons every day with Sriti. He also studied Indian classical music, Iranian music and other sound from the Mediterranean. In his late teens he discovered jazz, and started to move away from traditional music. He began composing his own music and produced his own solo oud concerts. As his reputation as a player grew, he felt constrained by his native country and left for Paris in 1981.
He became part of the Tunisian ex-patriot community and composed prolifically for film and theatre productions and contributed oud to the soundtrack Gabriel Yared composed for the Costa Gavras’ Hanna K. Music from Hanna K is included on Gabriel Yared Film Music, Vol. 3 (2003 Cinefonia France).
In 1985 he returned to Tunis to produce Liqua 85, a jazz-fusion concert with Tunisian, Turkish and French musicians. The concert won Tunisia's Grand National Prize for Music. Brahem became director of the Musical Ensemble of the City of Tunis and divided their repertoire between traditional and modern music. The music he composed drew on Mediterranean, African, Far Eastern, and European music was well as jazz. He assembled other masters like Béchir Selmi and Taoufik Zghonda put together a traditional takht, a small group that played the forgotten classics. He also began writing songs in the old classical style. One of them, “Ritek ma naaref ouin,” sung by Lotfi Bouchnak, became a huge hit. In 1990 he left the Musical Ensemble and toured the US and Canada and met Manfred Eicher, founder of ECM.
Brahem had made self-produced cassettes and a few albums for small Tunisian labels, but his ECM albums made him a true international star. Barzakh (1991 ECM), with percussionist Lassad Hosni and violin player Bechir Selmi, was praised for its impeccable musical vision, while Conte de l'Incroyable Amour (1992 ECM) featuring the clarinet of Barbaros Erköse and Kudsi Erguner’s nai was hailed for its free flowing improvisations. The German magazine Stereo named it one of the top albums of 1992. He celebrated with a concert in Tunisia with his teacher Ali Sriti and singer Sonia M’barek. On Madar (1994 ECM) Brahem collaborated with Jan Garbarek and tabla master Ustad Shaukat Hussain Khan a sinuous dance of European, Arab and Indian themes.
He also kept busy composing for films like Bezness, Sabots en Or, and Les Silences du Palais and many theater productions. Brahem used some of that work as the basis for Khomsa (1995 ECM) with Richard Galliano on accordion, Bechir Selmi on violin, Francois Couturier on piano, bass player Palle Danielsson, Jean-Marc Larché on sax, and Jon Christensen on drum kit. It’s bland of jazz and traditional Arab music thrilled critics and fans as well. Thimar (1998 ECM) with John Surman on clarinet and bass player Dave Holland was freely improvised in the studio showing off Brahem incredible control of his instrument. It won the Preises der Deutshen Shallplattenkritik, the German equivalent of the Mercury Prize.
For Astrakan Café (2000 ECM) the oud master chose Turkish gypsy clarinet player Barbaros Erköse and Tunisian percussionist Lassad Hosni to explore jazz, Turkish, Indian, flamenco, and Balkan music. Brahem recorded Charmediterranéen (2001 ECM) a more traditional sounding album with the Orchestre National de Jazz led to Le Pas du Chat Noir ( 202 ECM), which was composed on the piano, but its Arab/jazz aura remains intact. With pianist Francois Couturier and accordion player Jean-Louis Matinier they create another masterpiece of low-key improvisation. Couturier and Matinier returned for Voyage de Sahar (2006 ECM) another quiet excursion into jazzy inner space. In 2009 he released The Astounding Eyes Of Rita.