Rabih Abou-Khalil (, born August 17, 1957) is an oud player and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

born in Lebanon, who combines elements of

Arabic music Arabic music () is the music of the Arab world with all its diverse List of music styles, music styles and genres. Arabic countries have many rich and varied styles of music and also many linguistic Varieties of Arabic, dialects, with each countr ...

with

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

, and other styles. He grew up in

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

and moved to

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

, Germany, during the

Lebanese Civil War The Lebanese Civil War ( ) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon. The religious diversity of the ...

in 1978.

Musical style

Abou-Khalil studied the oud at the Beirut conservatory with oudist Georges Farah. After moving to Germany, he studied classical flute at the Academy of Music in

under Walther Theurer. In his compositions and live concerts, he combines elements of

with

, rock, or classical music, and has earned praise as "a

world music "World music" is an English phrase for styles of music from non-English speaking countries, including quasi-traditional, Cross-cultural communication, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical ...

ian years before the phrase became a label". — According to a review of his concert in ''The Guardian'' of 2002, Abou-Khalil "makes the hot,

staccato Staccato (; Italian for "detached") is a form of Articulation (music), musical articulation. In modern notation, it signifies a note of shortened duration, separated from the note that may follow by silence. It has been described by theorists and ...

Middle Eastern flavour and the seamless grooves of jazz mingle, as if they were always meant to." In a review of his 2007 album ''Songs For Sad Women,'' the BBC wrote "the characteristic blend of jazz-inflected Arabic melody with subtle rhythms combines into a hypnotic whole, as ever with Abou-Khalil’s fluent oud playing in a central role." Along with

Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...

ian oud

virtuoso A virtuoso (from Italian ''virtuoso'', or ; Late Latin ''virtuosus''; Latin ''virtus''; 'virtue', 'excellence' or 'skill') is an individual who possesses outstanding talent and technical ability in a particular art or field such as fine arts, ...

s Anouar Brahem and

Dhafer Youssef Dhafer Youssef (; born 19 November 1967) is a Tunisian composer, singer and oud player. Biography Dhafer Youssef was born in Téboulba (a small village of coastal Tunisia); his grandfather was a muezzin. He calls the radio "the most important s ...

, he has helped establish the oud as an important instrument of

Ethno jazz Ethno jazz, also known as world jazz, is a subgenre of jazz and world music, developed internationally in the 1950s and '60s and broadly characterized by a combination of traditional jazz and non-Western musical elements. Though occasionally equa ...

and world fusion. Among other musicians, Abou-Khalil has worked with ARTE Quartett (saxophone quartet), Alexander Bălănescu (violin), Luciano Biondini (accordion), Milton Cardona (conga),

Sonny Fortune Cornelius "Sonny" Fortune (May 19, 1939 – October 25, 2018) was an American jazz saxophonist. He played soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones, clarinet, and flute. Biography He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Af ...

(alto saxophone), Michel Godard (tuba and serpent),

Joachim Kühn Joachim Kurt Kühn (born 15 March 1944) is a German jazz pianist. Biography Kühn was born in Leipzig, Germany. He was a musical prodigy and made his debut as a concert pianist, having studied classical piano and composition, with Arthur Schmidt-E ...

(piano, alto saxophone),

Howard Levy Howard Levy (born July 31, 1951) is an American musician. A keyboardist and virtuoso harmonica player, he "has been realistically presented as one of the most important and radical harmonica innovators of the twentieth century." In 1988, Le ...

(harmonica),

Charlie Mariano Carmine Ugo Mariano (November 12, 1923 – June 16, 2009) was an American jazz saxophone, saxophonist who focused on the alto saxophone, alto and soprano saxophone. He occasionally performed and recorded on flute and nadaswaram as well. Biogra ...

(alto saxophone), Gabriele Mirabassi (clarinet), Glen Moore (bass), Mark Nauseef (percussion), Setrak Sarkissian ( darabukka),

Ramesh Shotham Ramesh Shotham (born May 7, 1948 in Madras, Tamil Nadu, India) is a percussionist and drummer. Life Ramesh Shotham was born in Madras, South India. He graduated with a degree in zoology from Loyola College, University of Madras. He began his musi ...

(Indian percussion),

Steve Swallow Steve Swallow (born October 4, 1940) is an American jazz bassist and composer, known for his collaborations with Jimmy Giuffre, Gary Burton, and Carla Bley. He was one of the first jazz double bassists to switch entirely to electric bass guitar. ...

(bass), Glen Velez (

frame drum A frame drum is a drum that has a drumhead width greater than its depth. It is one of the most ancient musical instruments, and perhaps the first drum to be invented. It has a single drumhead that is usually made of rawhide, but man-made mat ...

, percussion), or

Kenny Wheeler Kenneth Vincent John Wheeler, Order of Canada, OC (14 January 1930 – 18 September 2014) was a Canadian composer and trumpet and flugelhorn player, based in the U.K. from the 1950s onwards. Most of his performances were rooted in jazz, but he w ...

(

flugelhorn The flugelhorn (), also spelled fluegelhorn, flugel horn, or flügelhorn, is a brass instrument that resembles the trumpet and cornet, but has a wider, more conical bore. Like trumpets and cornets, most flugelhorns are pitched in B♭, though ...

Albums

His only album for the Munich-based label ECM was called ''Nafas'' (1988). Since 1990, his albums have been published by

Enja Records Enja Records is a German jazz record company and label based in Munich which was founded by jazz enthusiasts Matthias Winckelmann and Horst Weber in 1971. The label's first release was by Mal Waldron, and early releases included European and Jap ...

, Munich. For ''Al-Jadida'' (1992), Abou-Khalil invited alto saxophonist

; ''Blue Camel'' (1992), featured alto saxophonist

and

player Kenny Wheeler. ''Morton's Foot'' (2004) presents Luciano Biondini on accordion and

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...

n singer Gavino Murgia. ''Journey to the Centre of an Egg'' (2005) features a trio of oud, piano (

, who doubles on

alto saxophone The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgians, Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in the key of E♭ ( ...

) and Jarrod Cagwin on drums. ''Nafas'' and ''Tarab'' make use of the ney, the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

ern end-blown flute. ''Arabian Waltz'' features Abou-Khalil's compositions for string quartet (performed by the Balanescu Quartet), along with oud, Michel Godard on

tuba The tuba (; ) is the largest and lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece (brass), mouthpiece. It first appeared in th ...

or serpent, and frame drums. In 2008, Abou-Khalil released an album entitled "Em Português" ("In Portuguese"), where he mixes

fado Fado (; "destiny, fate") is a music genre which can be traced to the 1820s in Lisbon, Portugal, but probably has much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar Rui Vieira Nery states that "the only reliable information on the history of fado ...

with Arabic music with the participation of the fadista Ricardo Ribeiro.

TV series: Visions of Music

In 1998, Rabih Abou-Khalil hosted the television series ''Visions of Music''. This 13-part documentary series produced by EuroArts Entertainment set out to explore the blending of jazz with different music styles of the world (Caribbean salsa, Brazilian samba, Argentine tango, French musette, Spanish flamenco, Jewish klezmer, New Orleans R&B and Mississippi blues, as well as West African, South African, Indian, and Middle Eastern music) through historical

footage In filmmaking and video production, footage is raw, unedited material as originally filmed by a movie camera or recorded by a digital video camera, which typically must be film editing, edited to create a motion picture, digital video, video cli ...

and interviews with musicians by Abou-Khalil. The music of the TV-series was released on the album ''Visions of Music - World Jazz'' by Enja Records.

Discography

* ''Compositions & Improvisations'' (MMP, 1981) * ''Bitter Harvest'' (MMP, 1984) * ''Between Dusk and Dawn'' (MMP, 1987; Enja, 1993) * ''Bukra'' (MMP, 1988; Enja, 1994) * ''Nafas'' ( ECM, 1988) * ''Roots & Sprouts'' (MMP/Enja, 1990) * ''World Music Orchestra: East West Suite'' (Granit, 1990) * '' Al-Jadida'' (Enja, 1991) * '' Blue Camel'' (Enja, 1992) * '' Tarab'' (Enja, 1993) * '' The Sultan's Picnic'' (Enja, 1994) * '' Arabian Waltz'' (Enja, 1996) * '' Odd Times'' (Enja, 1997) * '' Yara'' (Enja, 1998) * '' The Cactus of Knowledge'' (Enja, 2001) * '' Il Sospiro'' (Enja, 2002) * '' Morton's Foot'' (Enja, 2003) * '' Journey to the Centre of an Egg'' (Enja, 2005) * '' Songs for Sad Women'' (Enja, 2007) * '' Em Português'' (Enja, 2008) * '' Trouble in Jerusalem'' (Enja, 2010) * ''Hungry People'' (World Village, 2012) * ''The Flood and the Fate of the Fish'', (Enja Records, 2020)

As guest musician

* Chris Karrer: ''Dervish Kish'' (Schneeball/Indigo, 1990/91) * Michael Riessler: ''Heloise'' (Wergo, 1992) *

& Friends: ''Sevent''y (veraBra records, 1993) * Glen Moore: ''Nude Bass Ascending'' (Intuition, 1996/97) * Ramesh Shotam: ''Madras Special'' (Permission Music, 2002)

Other

* Jakob Wertheim & Rabih Abou-Khalil: ''KopfKino'' cassette (Ohrbuch-Verlag, 1988) * ''The Jazz Club Highlights'' DVD (TDK JAZZ CLUB, 1990) * ''Rabih Abou-Khalil presents Visions of Music - World Jazz'' accompanying TV series (Enja, 1999)

References

External links

Official websiteRabih Abou Khalil at All About JazzFotos Rabih Abou Khalil & Termites at work - 2007 jazzit
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Abou-Khalil, Rabih 1957 births Living people ECM Records artists Lebanese musicians Musicians from Beirut Modal jazz oud players Lebanese jazz musicians Lebanese oud players University of Music and Theatre Munich alumni