Ibrahim Maalouf, Capacity to Love, Mister I.B.E ***

Back in 2010 thinking of hearing Ibrahim Maalouf at the ICA - the Lebanese-French trumpeter wasn't much known then. But catching him for the first time it was clear there was already a buzz. The crowd had a clear inkling that there was something in …

Published: 18 Oct 2022. Updated: 18 months.

Back in 2010 thinking of hearing Ibrahim Maalouf at the ICA - the Lebanese-French trumpeter wasn't much known then. But catching him for the first time it was clear there was already a buzz. The crowd had a clear inkling that there was something in the air.

Fast forward a dozen years and he has long since become a major international touring star and released lots of records mostly way beyond an essential jazz audience's radar. Certainly his mournful tone is unmistakable and Maalouf possesses the ability to vault from one genre to another and to build audiences in many different quarters whether from jazz, electronic, Arabic music or more mainstream pop areas and still remaining credible and relevant through the humane filter that he adds to all his work.

There are a lot of famous names here jostling for position and Capacity to Love is the sort of album that appeals to fans of other people as much as Maalouf.

Gregory Porter, De La Soul, even Sharon Stone, featuring the actress' lesser known poetic side and Erick The Architect are some of the stellar names featured.

Snippets of Charlie Chaplin’s speech from The Great Dictator which opens the album has never been more relevant in a climate where the far right are as deranged as ever and it isn't as if we haven't already been warned - a message that Maalouf so movingly underlines. The track most relevant to a jazz listenership is the title track featuring Gregory Porter and equates with his clubbier crossover work with Disclosure here given a stirring Levantine twist.

Out on 4 November

Tags:

Yotam Silberstein, 'Dada,' Jazz & People ****

One of the best guitarists we have ever heard live, think Kurt Rosenwinkel calibre chops and natural George Benson-esque improvising flair, the Tel Aviv-born Yotam Silberstein was championed earlier in his career by Monty Alexander in whose band …

Published: 18 Oct 2022. Updated: 18 months.

Next post

One of the best guitarists we have ever heard live, think Kurt Rosenwinkel calibre chops and natural George Benson-esque improvising flair, the Tel Aviv-born Yotam Silberstein was championed earlier in his career by Monty Alexander in whose band the Harlem-Kingston Express we heard him play in Valletta in 2011.

On Universos out in November the drummer with him is the Avishai player Daniel Dor and Vitor Gonçalves crops up playing a range of instruments including piano here. The world's greatest jazz harmonica player Grégoire Maret guests on 'Tal and Gil.'

'Dada' wrapped inside a Mediterranean whirligig of sunshine sounds like a new standard (the melody, stretch your imagination and listen hard - it is more obvious one minute and twenty seconds in) intimations of 'My Old Flame' flicker transcendentally in the mind's eye - like seeing someone's face and thinking of somebody else who vaguely looks like them. We are not suggesting that there is any link. And not the same at all by any means but this shiver of melody sends us down the rabbit hole anyway to Mae West with Duke Ellington. The Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow standard appeared in the 1934 western Belle of the Nineties and has been a presence in jazz repertoire ever since.

Mellow, taking all the time in the world flavoured by that lingering Silberstein tone French label Jazz & People don't put out many records but when they do you have to beg for more - track of the day today in the 1 luv spot.