Songs from the oud

French oud player Jean-Pierre Smadja says "It is a dream to finally come and play in Jerusalem."

By BARRY DAVIS
French oud player Jean-Pierre Smadja (photo credit: AURORE VINOT)
French oud player Jean-Pierre Smadja
(photo credit: AURORE VINOT)
They say nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. The same could be said of musical exploration.
Up to around 30 years ago, before world music burst onto the global stage with a phosphorescent bang, not many people considered the benefits of marrying sounds and rhythms from seemingly disparate cultures and disciplines, to produce something new.
Today, of course, it is gloves off and all systems go. There seems to be hardly a musical sector that has not been thoroughly mined, and the ore extracted and fused with some very different material, to create a novel sonic amalgam.
French oud player Jean-Pierre Smadja took his first steps along a long and intertwining musical road some years ago. Now 50, the Tunisian-born Jewish musician has long been exploring the rhythmic and textural possibilities afforded by combining the earthy sounds of the oud with the seemingly endless sculpting permutations one can obtain with the help of advanced electronic equipment.
Smadja, who is coming here with the support of the Romain Gary French Institute in Jerusalem, will unfurl some of that expertise on Monday (7:30 p.m.) when he joins forces with Israeli percussionist Noa Vax in what has been termed “a contemporary electronic arrangement of works by the great masters of Arabic music” at the Confederation House in Jerusalem. The concert is part of this year’s Jerusalem International Oud Festival, which kicked off yesterday and will run until November 24 under the aegis of the Confederation House and its director Efi Benaya.
Smadja will work his creative magic, and mold and bend his oud instrumental artistry through a computer, while Vax sticks to traditional percussive mediums.
The Frenchman is over the moon about his forthcoming visit to the Holy Land.
“For me it is like a dream, to finally come and play in Jerusalem,” he enthuses. “I am very happy to do this.”
Although he grew up in France after his family relocated when he was five years old, Smadja says he fed off Arab musical roots from an early age.
“We moved to Paris, and I got all my musical education there. I feel my hometown is more Paris than Tunis. I feel a little bit more French than Tunisian. But, when I started writing music it was always very influenced by Arab music, oriental music.”
That was very much a result of Smadja’s domestic education.
“We used to listen to records by all the greats of Arabic music – [Egyptian diva] Umm Kulthum and [Egyptian composer, singer and oud player] Farid al-Atrash,” recalls Smadja.
But there were some other, more contemporary, cultural elements in the youngster’s formative years.
“When I was very young, my parents used to take me and my brother to see the cabaret, in Tunisia. So my first real contact with music was with popular Arab music.”
The musical education plot thickens.
“My parents, in the 1970s, used to listen to jazz, funk, disco and Brazilian music. So I grew up with all those influences,” Smadja notes.
There is clearly nothing conventional about the Frenchman. Even when he took up the oud himself, he did it in his own youthful independent way.
“I more or less learned to play by myself,” he says.
“There were lots of oud masters that I was listening to. I took two or three lessons on oud, but that was it.”
Smadja also paid his dues on the guitar, and in other areas of musical pursuit.
“I played guitar for 20 years. I played at jazz clubs. I also went to study jazz at a jazz school. I learned about harmony and improvisation and all these things. I was also a sound engineer and I had my own studio. I did that for three years, until I got depressed about it.”
That signaled a return to hands-on instrumental music making and led to a life-changing decision. “My parents gave me an oud when I was 30. I played both guitar and oud for a few years, but now I play only oud. It is my life.”
That, and some computerized enhancements.
The born-again oud player was helped along his evolutionary way by French master oud player Mehdi Haddab, and Smadja’s international profile shot up in 2002 when he and Haddab formed the DuOud act, which performed extensively to large and enthusiastic audiences all over the world.
Although Smadja released his debut CD back in 1994, it wasn’t until six years later that he gained international recognition for his signature blending of acoustic and electronic sounds on Equilibriste. The album featured a top-notch lineup of sidemen, including French jazz saxophonist Stefano di Battista, jazz flutist Magic Malik and tuba player François Thuillier. The release did well and reached No. 4 on the European world music charts.
Smadja had to contend with a fair deal of resistance from the purists who found it hard to stomach his electronic musical manipulation of classical Arab music.
“Oud lovers who came to our concerts were really surprised by what we were doing. In fact they didn’t even think I could play oud. They said we played just a few notes and then we let go with the electronics. But that was not the case. For me, using electronic music to add special rhythms and atmosphere, the oud was a beautiful thing to work with. I worked at home to see what I could do. I used electronics just to give some support for my oud playing.
“It was a highly satisfying voyage of discovery. It was wonderful to see that I could blend a traditional instrument with a very warm sound with the very digital universe around it. I felt this contrast would also be very interesting for other people.”
Smadja may have initially taken his audiences unawares, but they eventually came round.
“People were a bit surprised to begin with, but the more the concert went on the more they understood what it was we were trying to do. Most of them loved the idea.”
The Frenchman says his early education in jazz stands him in good stead to this day.
“That helps me with the improvisation I do. The idea behind this music was also to give lots of freedom to the instrument, to show that it’s a really good instrument to improvise on. I can also switch from the acoustic sound to an electric sound of the instrument, so there are lots of possibilities to create a special beautiful atmosphere.”
In between all the influences he has accrued along his musical path to date, Smadja says he never loses touch with his roots.
“I am also influenced by my Jewishness because of the prayers and the different styles at the religious ceremonies. When you visit synagogues all over the world, you hear all the [liturgical] melodies, and the prayers contribute to the art.”
At the end of the day he just wants us to have a good time.
“I don’t know if the venue [Confederation House] is suitable for people to get up and dance while I’m playing, but I heard that Israelis like to party,” he laughs. “Maybe I can at least get them moving in their chairs.”
For tickets and more information about the Jerusalem International Oud Festival: *6226, (02) 623-7000, (02) 624-5206 ext. 4, and tickets.bimot.co.il


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