Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Since my interview with Remi Alvarez I got interested in the Mexican music scene. Meanwhile I met another Mexican musician, Omar Tamez, who was playing at The University of The Streets a couple of months ago. It seems there is a Jazz/improve/elctronica scene developing which I like to cover for a while.

A week ago I got an email from Jimmy Cohen, a member of the Mexican group ZEHEL, with following text:
Hello:
We are an experimental music and video band from Mexico city. Here you can get an idea of what we do, from acoustic to electronic, I hope you are interested.

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Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Blurred Vision, a band of two young Iranian brothers, Sepp and Solh in Toronto used the Pink Floyed song  “Another Brick in the Wall“, which was written by the great Roger Waters in 1979, as a musical-political statement to express their support for the pro-democracy movement and revolution in Iran which started in the summer of 2009 in Tehran, Iran.

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The famous line, “Hey. teacher, leave us kids alone” is replaced with “Hey, Ayatollah, leave those kids alone” which was approved by Roger Waters. The video shows a mullah and the security forces chasing after and beating the young protesters in Iran. The director of the  video is the Canadian/Iranian filmmaker, Babak Payami who lives in Toronto.

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Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

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Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

A new video by Sven Kacirek! The video for ” Paper Flowers ” (from his recent released album SVEN KACIREC, THE KENYA SESSIONS) with images of the Ali Khamed Orchestra in Kenya and Sven playing at his studio in Hamburg (Germany). Cool video: sound and images match very well!

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Sven’s album is nominated for this years prestigous German “Prize of the German Record Critics’ Award“!!

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Film

While the world tunes in to the revolution in Egypt, Women’s Voices Now  highlights Egyptian filmmakers to remind us all of the peace and beauty that is possible. 

Girls Talk by Mayye Zayed (fiction, 5 min)
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Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Photo by Laurent Burst

YEMEN BLUES was founded by Ravid Kahalani, a rising star in Israel who grew up to a traditional Yemenite family, learned the language and the traditional chants of his origin. Ravid joined forces with Omer Avital, a well known bass player and composer, and together they gathered YEMEN BLUES, a group of musicians from New York, Israel and Uruguay which fuses traditional Yemenite music with blues, jazz, funk and West African rhythms and melodies. 

About Ravid Kahalani

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Text and photos by Jeff Greene 

Baku, modern and ancient

The city of Baku, the capitol of Azerbaijan, located below the Caucasus Mountains on the edge of the Caspian Sea, is a fascinating blend of east and west, old and new. In the late 1800s, numerous “oil barons’ mansions” were built alongside the existing ancient Islamic walled city in a strange mixture of architectural styles that mixed European classical, Art Nouveau with Persian eclecticism. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union 20 years ago, Baku has experienced another oil-fueled building boom of modern skyscrapers. But nothing seems to capture the essence of the Azerbaijan psyche the way that traditional Mugham music does. 

The two Jeff's with the staff of the conservatory

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Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

photo courtesy of PandA System

Two weeks ago when I interviewed the German percussionist and electronica performer Sven Kacirek in a Turkish restaurant in the West Village, he wanted to recommend musicians from Hamburg, Germany who might be interesting for me  to cover. So a couple of days ago he surprised me with an interesting project from his hometown, PandA System with cellist Andreas Otto and DJ Prashant from Bangalore, India.

DJ Prashant uses recordings of Indian instruments to create beats with two turntables. And Andi Otto plays short, minmal melodies and rhythm patterrns, over the top with an electronic cello he calls a Fello. - his own unique performance instrument combining a cello with his ” magic” bow and a computer.

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Pamela Z website

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Text and photos by Jeff Greene

Late last year, there was an article on the front page of The NY Times about the planned demolition of large sections of the ancient silk road city, Kashgar, in western China.  I decided I should go before it was gone.  An Uzbek friend had invited me to his arranged wedding in Samarkand, and I figured that was all the excuse I needed to go to Central Asia.

Dolan geycheks

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