Tarab
On this outstanding 1993 recording, oudist Rabih Abou-Khalil brought together the famedneyor flute player Selim Kusur, percussionist Nabil Khaiat, Indian drummer Ramesh Shotham, and American bassistGlen Moorefor a ghostly exercise in experimental Arabic music. Abou-Khalil, long known for his great improvisations on an ancient art form, delves into the free arena jazz provides, playing off his experienced accompanists with verve and a careful, focused attention. The result is music rooted in the Arabic world, rich with desert tones and jingling percussion, but one that dances in darkly hypnotic musical jams. "Awakening" spotlights Khaiat and Shotham on South Indian and frame drums, tambourine, and percussion during long, flittering solos of thick, overlying cadences while Abou-Khalil's oud deftly bounces along. Selim Kusur's flute conjures the vast spiritual expanses of a nighttime desert on "Haneen Wa Hanaan" before "Lost Centuries" brings a sensual urgency to time passed. The bright "Arabian Waltz" closes out the collection briskly, reminding us why the album's namesake,Tarab, translates to a "stirring of the soul."--Karen K. Hugg