A crash course in Arabic music

Rahim Alhaj

“When the Soul Is Settled:

Music of Iraq” (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings)

BENEATH the daily violence in Iraq lies a civilization dating back more than five millenniums. And if the capacity to create a musical culture is a hallmark of a civilized society, there is ample evidence that instruments with sophisticated capabilities existed in the early Mesopotamian city-states. One of the most fascinating is the pictorial image of a lute-like instrument on a cylinder seal discovered in the 5,000-year-old city of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia.

It’s impossible to tell what that instrument sounded like or, in fact, what its many successors sounded like before the oud became a favored solo instrument in the royal courts of Baghdad about 1,000 years ago. But from that point up to the present, a highly sophisticated classical music style has grown and flourished. And while Iraq is attempting to survive as a nation, a few determined musical artists such as Rahim Alhaj are also striving to preserve and advance the country’s musical traditions.

“When the Soul Is Settled: Music of Iraq” is a fascinating introduction to the maqamat, the collection of note sequences that are the foundation of Arabic music. The album also highlights Alhaj’s unique combination of traditional and innovative performance techniques. Although each mode-like maqam sequence bears some resemblance to Western scales, they are in fact far more complex, employing melodic fragments, specific relationships to other maqam as well as spiritual or mystical references.

In this collection, Alhaj, accompanied by percussionist Souhail Kaspar, performs a sequence of extended improvisations based on nine maqamat. Some are as familiar to Middle Eastern ears as the C major scale is to Western listeners; others are less well known. But the resulting collection has an impact similar to that of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin. Filled with air and space, sometimes stepping lightly through the statements of an individual maqam, often interacting rhythmically with Kaspar, Alhaj’s spontaneous inventions are constantly fascinating -- a convincing affirmation of the rich culture of an embattled area of the world.

Here’s a selection of other recent world music releases, some from similarly distressed areas, others ranging across sounds from around the globe:

Marcel Khalife

“Taqasim”

(Connecting Cultures Records)

Lebanese oud virtuoso Khalife has been a pioneer in blending Arabic music with Western elements in works performed by large orchestras as well as his Al Mayadeen ensemble.

Like Alhaj -- who was imprisoned twice by Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime before he left Iraq -- Khalife has had his skirmishes with various authorities, for pro-Arab political statements as well as alleged “insults of religious values.” (It’s obviously difficult simply to be a musician in the Middle East, which may explain why Khalife now lives in Paris and Alhaj lives in New Mexico.)

Ultimately, all musicians -- regardless of origin -- will offer their music as the ultimate statement of their values, creatively, culturally and politically. And Khalife is best experienced in his stirring improvisations.

Deeply inspired by the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish (and accompanied by the double bass of Peter Herbert and the percussion of Bachar Khalife) he performs a large, extended work in three parts. Each of the stop and start sections of the taqasim (the foundation of the improvising), reveals different emotional content -- sometimes intimate and inward reaching, sometimes high spirited and celebratory.

Khalife generates his lines from the rich-toned middle and lower areas of his instrument, employing vocal-like melismatic phrases, constantly reminding the listener of the complex, lyrical rhythms of Darwish’s poetry. Different styles drift -- dreamlike at times -- through the music: a whisper of flamenco, a sudden rhythmic recollection of jazz, a sliding phrase recalling an Indian raga. It’s an impressive outing, stimulating new responses with each hearing.

Tartit

“Abacabok” (Crammed Disc)

Tartit is a Malian Tuareg group similar to the better-known ensemble Tinariwen. Although the music of the nine-member ensemble (five women, four men) is very different from that of Alhaj and Khalife, Tartit -- like most Middle Eastern and African players -- have been deeply affected by the shifting political currents of their homeland, having come together in a Burkina Faso refugee camp. What they play reaches deeply into traditional call-and-response styles, enhanced by a dedication to trance-invoking repetitions.

Each track is surprisingly different, with the dark sounds of tinde drums rumbling beneath scratchy violin, edgy electric guitar and the contrasts of a warm ngoni lute. Occasionally piercing this hypnotic combination of timbres, the ululating cries of female voices add a touch of wildness, creating an evocative, imagined image of the night sky, warm winds and the vast expanse of the desert.

Various Artists

“One World, Many Cultures” (Putumayo)

Putumayo has always been effective at assembling intriguing collections of thematically oriented world music. This time out, the label has taken a different but no less compelling direction with a set of songs combining some likely -- as well as some very unlikely -- musical partners.

The opening track, featuring Senegal’s singer-songwriter Wasis Diop with English soul singer Lena Fiagbe, is an example of the appealing results that can take place when two very different musicians find compatible middle ground.

The combination of Breton harpist-singer Alan Stivell and Senegal’s Youssou N’Dour is even better -- an off-center interface in which Celtic tin whistle roves freely across the sounds of kora and dembe as N’Dour and Stivell join in a stirring anthem to peace.

Equally gripping are the most unlikely duos: Willie Nelson’s all-American vocalizing on his “Still Is Still Moving to Me” with the reggae rhythms of Toots and the Maytals; Ethiopian singer Gigi with a mixed bag of backers that includes tabla player Karsh Kale, Indian sarangi player Ustad Sultan Khan and P-Funk keyboardist Bernie Worrell; and Algerian rai superstar Cheb Mami exchanging phrases with the equally notorious Ziggy Marley.

The recording quality varies from track to track (the selections were assembled from a variety of sources), and some sound as though the performers never actually got together in the same studio.

But the results are, for the most part, worth the effort -- entertaining testimony to the fact that, for musicians, boundaries are irrelevant.