Forward

Lebanese jazz composer Toufic Farroukh talks about how he came to his new-old sound

One of Lebanon's most significant contributions to the international music landscape (aside from dabkeh, of course) is "Oriental jazz" a clever blend of Western jazz modalities and improvisation conventions with those of the Arabic classical tradition.
One of the pioneers of Lebanon's Oriental jazz, along with Ziad Rahbani and Rabih Abu Khalil, is Toufic Farroukh. That's not to say he's very fond of the term.

"You know, I think this term `Oriental jazz' is a masquerade," Farroukh says. "Jazz may have originated in America but now it comes from everywhere. Yet we always need this label `Oriental,' `Lebanese,' whatever. It's like racism."

The Paris-based Farroukh is back in Beirut for the Lebanese launch of "Cinema Beyrouth," his latest CD. It's a double-barreled launch, since his first two concerts have been held in DRM (The Democratic Republic of Music), Hamra's brand-new music venue, set up by Forward Music the label that recorded the new CD.

For anyone following Farroukh's recent recordings "Cinema Beyrouth" will sound more like a departure.

Farroukh's last two outings "Tootya" and "Drab Zeen" are carefully calibrated sonic chaos, amalgams of disparate musical styles and sounds, instrumentation and voice a magpie musicianship that seems appropriate for a veteran of Beirut's brand of jazz fusion.

Oud, qanoun and nai are joyously thrust against a range of jazz winds as well as other instruments that have been absorbed by late-model fusion from electric guitar to beat-box. Lots of personnel go into such a mix.
"Tootya" credits no less than 26 musicians and two lead vocalists. Though the work on these earlier CDs is redolent of Oriental jazz, some of the most-interesting tunes bear little trace of anything recognizably "Oriental." "The pain in Spain remains mainly in the brain," from "Drab Zeen," is a jazz-inflected, beat-boxand-bass-accompanied piano contemplation of an Andalusian theme.

Those recent numbers that have found traction among Lebanese audiences, the tracks that haunt the playlists of popular Beirut nightspots like Barometre, feature female voices from Lebanon's art music scene.

"Drab Zeen," for instance, includes two versions of the World War II classic "Lili Marleen," reanimated by the sultry voice of Yasmine Hamdan. that set the vocals of the classically trained Rima Khcheich against music that swings widely from poppy fusion to hints of R&B.

The sound of "Cinema Beyrouth" is, thanks to Farroukh's ensemble of French session players, completely different. Centering on a brass quartet Nicolas Giraud on trumpet, Daniel Zimmermann on trombone, Didier Havet on sousaphone and tuba and Farroukh himself wielding soprano and tenor sax and augmented by acoustic piano (Leandro Aconcha, who co-arranged the tunes) and drums (Luc Isenmann), the sound is much more enclosed and organic than that of the older material.

For Farroukh, "Cinema Beyrouth" records than a return to the sort of jazz he was making in his first two instrumental albums "Little Secrets" and "Ali on Broadway."

"Here I use not the instruments, but the spirit of Oriental music," Faroukh says. "The instruments aren't a barrier but a path to that goal."

He says all tunes on the record were originally composed for the soundtracks of Lebanese films (by Ghassan Salhab, Michel Kammoun and Dima alJundi) and dance performances.

"Many people asked me why I don't have all this music on one record." Farroukh recalls. "This is impossible because the orchestration and the sound isn't the same. You have no unity. "After `Tootya' I had a real desire to go back to writing for brass. At the beginning I took the themes for these three films and I rewrote them for brass quartet. I felt that something was missing. Then when I started composing with the pianist, the project completely changed.

"Then when I started to rehearse with the musicians, it was very difficult without the rhythm section and they insisted that we had to work with a drummer. The music," he grimaces, "becomes easier for the listener."

Farroukh says he finished the record two years ago but that securing a Beirut performance venue was challenging because he was expected to front the finances himself. It was because Forward had plans to open DRM that he signed with that label.

For "Cinema Beyrouth," he continues, "we made five rehearsals in two weeks. We recorded everything in three days and we recorded live the first time in my life I did this. I made some editing afterwards ... I kept it for three months and started to make the mix.

"Then I had some money problems to pay for the studio time. Then AFAC [the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture] provided some money to finish the mix. I finished the mixing in 10 days.
No re-recording."

This experience, he says, was completely unlike the multiply-layered post-production that went into making "Tootya" and "Drab Zeen."

"Too much time. Too much money.
Too much energy," he says recollecting those earlier projects. "I love the details of the sound. But I don't know if many people listen to the music the same way that I do. I love it ... but [it is] too expensive.

"It's not just the studio time. It's also the concerts. Now I tour with five musicians and it's very expensive. When I toured with `Drab Zeen' I had 10 musicians and two sound engineers. Today it would be very difficult to do this.

"When you have your hands on all the elements of the music, it sounds very controlled," he concludes. "But jazz need spontaneity. The music needs to breathe."

Toufic Farroukh's "Cinema Beyrouth" is released by Forward Music.