Anouar Brahem: Blue Maqams

Anouar Brahem, Paris-based Tunisian virtuoso of the oud or Arabic lute, makes a welcome return to the jazz fold in inspired dialogue with three distinguished jazz practitioners – bassist Dave Holland, with whom he last collaborated on his 1997 Thimar album, pianist Django Bates and drummer Jack Dejohnette. The quartet engage in delicate and graceful colloquy – in the lyrical and gently progressing title track, for instance (“maqams” refers to the modality of classical Arabic music), Holland’s bass thrum and Dejohnette’s cymbal work couching the microtonal lines of the oud, while Bates invokes a dreamy combination of languor and suspense in pieces such as La Nuit or La Passante .In

Bahia, Brahem returns to a number he recorded with Jan Garbarek some 25 years ago, a sinuous, flamencosounding oud meditation which takes up a hypnotic riff as Holland then Dejohnette sidle in stealthily, while

Unexpected Outcome closes the album with an exhilarating tidal flow. ■