Category Archives: Iran: music, culture, social issues

New Iranian Music Series P.1- TarantisT

Iranian Music which is about today…

Text by Dawoud Kringle

Despite what our political leaders would have us believe, Iran has centuries of traditions of music and musical innovations. The aforementioned political friction and idiocy notwithstanding, this innovation has shown no signs of stopping. After being driven underground in 1979, and forced to survive with hostilities on several fronts threatening its existence, Iranian musicians are emerging with a renewed purpose. And finding acceptance among not only Iranian expatriates, but also among open minded western listeners.

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Our Condolences: Kamran Hooshmand Passed Away

Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Kamran HooshmandMy dear friend, music colleague and FB friend (I think FB brought us together)  Kamran Hooshmand  passed away a couple of days ago. When I was drinking a coffee with my wife at Zabar’s last Sunday afternoon I checked my FB page and booms there was his wife’s Jill’s announcement of his death. I was shattered by this news, tears dropped out of my eyes. Immediately I commented to the news and asked Jill to get back to me, because I didn’t know her cell number.

She hasn’t responded yet.

This is what I know…He died of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL). He told me about it in February; and I believe since than he has went through three chemos or even more?

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Interview: Kamran Hooshmand devoting his life to various styles of Middle Eastern music

Interview by DooBeeDooBeeDoo NY editorial staff

DooBeeDoo (DBD): Salam Kamran!

Thanks for making time to do this interview with DooBeeDoo. We’re looking forward to seeing your show this Sunday at CA Music Room in New York.
You have great guests in your ensemble and also a strong band, SoSaLa, opening up for you.
Two different bands with two different sound and messages will be performing but both leaders have their roots in Iran. Is this the first time for you to play here?

kamranbeard

(Photo courtesy of Kamran Hooshmand)

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Iran’s Tribute To Funk Music in the 60s and 70s: An Unlikely Treasure Chest Of Funk

Text reprinted from npr music: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112829658

Mehr PouyaWritten by EGON (SEPTEMBER 17, 2009 11:18 AM ET)

A few months ago, the record dealer who sold me the majority of his Iranian collection told me that his recent finds in Tehran — including Mehr Pooya‘s solitary LP of fuzz-guitar-soaked sitar funk — were going to a well-heeled international collector. He’d already sold the heavy psych pieces and the Iranian presses of Led Zeppelin albums and The Beatles’ Abba Road [sic] for stacks of euros before I got to dig through his collection.

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Sound: The Encounter (Iran/Syria) coming to the US next month. Check them out!

Sound13_horizontalInfluenced by African and Arabic music and dance, contemporary ensemble pieces blending elements of devotional songs, mystical music, and dance traditions spring forth from the Persian Gulf and the Silk Route.

Sound: the Encounter (see tour schedule below) brings together adventurous musicians from Iran and Syria who seek to reassemble diverse expressions of a shared musical heritage in contemporary forms. The result is a collection of newly-developed and arranged musical pieces inspired by the millennium-old musical legacy of the ancient Silk Route that are rooted in classical and folk traditional musical forms and re-imagined within a new artistic frame.

Ancient instruments (bagpipes, flutes and drums) take on new contemporary identities in the hands of award-winning Syrian composer and saxophonist Basel Rajoub, acclaimed Iranian musician and dancer Saeid Shanbezadeh, and up-and-coming Iranian virtuoso percussionist Naghib Shanbezadeh.

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