Put an Israeli Jew, an Australian Christian and a Turkish Muslim together in a
recording studio (or more accurately alone next to their own computers with
file-sharing capabilities), and it may sound something like Three Waves Under
the Bridge, the group effort of Ittai Shaked, Andy Bussuttil and Umit
Ceyhan.
The bridge of a musical composition often connects disparate
sections or ideas resulting in a cohesive whole. But the international trio’s
Bridge Project takes that concept one step further by integrating musicians from
diverse backgrounds resulting in a musical blend spiced by Middle Eastern
instrumentation, Turkish rhythms, some Balkan beats and even a touch of
klezmer.
According to violinist Shaked, the project’s lynchpin, what
started out as an informal exercise with his fellow musicians does more than
cross a chasm, it eliminates it entirely.
“We just wanted to show that
you can bridge gaps, and that music is stronger than anything else,” the
life-long musician said last week from his Tel Aviv office at Waves, a
successful Grammy Award-winning startup that develops audio mixing software for
the digital age for sound engineers and producers. Shaked’s role at the
company as a quality assurance coordinator played a pivotal role in the genesis
of The Bridge Project.
“Part of my job is to manage a large forum of
about 100 musicians, producers and sound engineers from around the world who
help us beta test the products before they’re released to the market,” he
said.
About two years ago, when the band he was playing in broke up,
Shaked posted a message to the forum asking if anyone wanted to collaborate to
make some music, even long distance by sending music files back and forth. Both
Bussuttil and Ceyhan, working as testers for Waves, answered the
call.
However, Bussuttil, the owner of a recording studio in the Maltese
Archipelago and a specialist in the folk music of the Middle East, the Balkans
and Asia Minor, recalled the origins of the group somewhat
differently.
“Ittai posted on the forum that his band had fallen apart
and he was sad about it, and I responded, ‘do you want to start another band?’
said Bussuttil, who arrived in Israel last week for the Bridge Project’s live
debut in a series of show this month throughout the country. “I went into the
forum and wrote, ‘come on, Ittai needs a band – who’s in?’ Umit answered, and we
had a trio.”
The three multi-instrumentalists began sending each other
musical ideas and passages, adding their own parts and passing them on. While
the possibilities of technological incompatibility or malfunctions was there,
the trio minimized the likelihood of mishaps occurring.
“We set some
technological rules that we would all work on the same audio host, use the same
editing software and sound processing system, so that when we send files to each
other and play them on our own computers, they would sound the same to all of
us,” said Shaked.
“The process was pretty easy, even though we’re talking
about big files. You can send them overnight and in the morning the others can
open and listen to it, then record their parts.”
AS IMPORTANT as the
technological compatibility was the musical interaction between the three
musicians, which also proved to be seamless during the more than a year of
digital file sharing.
“The chemistry between us was amazing – we found
out we shared and loved the same kind of music, more or less, with different
spices,” said Shaked. “And all three of us play instruments that combine
together very nicely. At some point, I realized that what we’re doing here is
making an album.”
Shaked took on the role of coordinating the project,
with regular input from his two virtual mates.
“We had discussions about
once a week on Skype, where we would talk about particular songs and what was
needed in terms of parts and instrumentation, and we eventually got a general
consensus,” said Shaked.
“It was actually easier than being in a band
that’s recording all together. When you’re with someone in the same room for a
long time, it can get into conflicts. The fact that we were away from
each other actually helped.”
It certainly didn’t hurt, as the
Three Waves
Under the Bridge, mixed by Shaked and mastered by Bussuttil, is a reflective
world music mosaic brimming with musical ideas, and featuring a genre-hopping
range of instruments – North African percussion like bongos and darbukas,
strings ranging from violin, viola and cello to clarinet and sax, and
traditional Turkish instruments like the duduk, kopuz and saz. One track,
“Agladikca,” even features vocals in Hebrew and Turkish by Tel Aviv-based
blues/jazz singer Oshrat Fahima.
For the trio, the music they created is
only one of the accomplishments of The Bridge Project – the other being the
coexistence element of musicians from three different religions and locations
coming together in a “bridge” of cultures.
“Our efforts were an attempt
to unify people rather than divide them,” said Bussuttil, “And we hoped to
demonstrate that people from different backgrounds can create more than
conflict, we can create things of beauty as well.”
The album has been
adopted by The Daniel Pearl Foundation as being exemplary of the principles
they’re pursuing and it will be promoted on their website, according to
Bussuttil, who has often done benefit work for the organization. In addition,
some of the proceeds from the album sales will go to the foundation, named after
the slain American journalist.
Last week, he and Shaked finally met each
other face to face (they liked each other) and since then, have been busy
practicing with three local musicians ahead of the Bridge Project’s debut on May
14 at the Tmuna Theater in Tel Aviv. They were hopeful that Ceyhan, who lives in
Toulouse, France and teaches sonic and cinematic arts at the University of
Toulouse, would be able to arrive following the resolution of a spate of visa
problems.
Other shows on the mini-tour, supported by the Foreign Ministry
and the Australian Embassy in Israel, include The Jame Club in Acre on May 17,
The Jazz Club in Mitzpe Ramon on May 18, and Hemdat Yamin in the Galilee on May
19.
“We’re practicing and we’re almost ready,” said Shaked, taking time
to reflect on the outcome of the innocent message he posted over a year ago on
the Waves forum.
“Our name says it all – we succeeded in being a bridge
between different cultures.”