I decided to record this project very quickly, in two days, with a very precise idea: one and unique take for each song... All the instruments would be played all together without re recording and no corrections possible. I had already taken this kind of bet with my song “Gibran” recorded on my second album “Bedouin’ Blues”. The fact to have this song on the beautiful compilation Desert Blues 2 (Network Medien / Harmonia Mundi) helped me to live a whole adventure and wonderful encounters throughout the world. On “Gibran”, I used the bamboo flute like a slide on the guitar then in the same song using it like a regular flute played with one hand and strumming the strings with the other.
I knew also at that moment that my new project would be a rhythmic one, at least miore than my two latest ones “Orietal Voyage” and “Nomad Spirit”. I would be adding my grooves to the athmospheres of my special instruments.
For the percussions played with the foot, I had this idea of stompboxes for many many years. I had already asked to Franck William Fromy, very talented and creative guy, to invent a percussion that would be a sort of bass drum. In 2006, he came with the idea of fixing two piezzo mics on a small wooden board with a piece of cork fixed over them! Here I had my special bass drum added to the rattles that I usually have on my ankles.
A few days before D day, here I am with plenty of songs and instruments wanting to be in and an idea makes its way: sing in the five languages of my family... Five languages for my fifth album, it makes sense, doesn’t it?!
French, that is akwardly my mother tongue. In fact it was the minority’s language under the Ottoman Empire where my parents came from: my father of armenian, greek and syrian origins born in Smyrna and my mother born in Istanbul from armenian and syrian origins.
Arabic, the language of the city where I was born: Beirut and the language of eternal friendship.
Turkish, that language that made me laugh as my mom spoke it with her mother and sisters hoping that we, the kids, didn’t understand a thing.
Greek, that my mother and my father spoke to say those beautiful words of love.
Armenian, this hidden root that found its way through the rocks and slaughters, language that I don’t speak but language that found an immense resonnance in my soul.
I had been writing those last years, some texts in those different languages. French and Arabic on my own, with my mother in Greek and Turkish. I knew a few words in Armenain, words that I loved the sound. One night as I was talking to Maral, an Armenian Lebanese friend of mine, she helps me with the grammar and we add some othe words. Then another French Armenian friend: Anoush, helps me with accent. So here I am with the five languages of my family!
I had the sounds, the rhythms, the languages, I had to find a large place where to record. I wanted to be far enough from the engineer, to be kind of isolated from him, so I could imagine myself on stage. I didn’t want to be interrupted in anyway. My friend and musician Claude Sacre tells me about a huge studio in the suburb of Paris. Those were the Studios Vogue, so many music was recorded there since the sixties.
So here I am in the middle of a large studio, microphones all around my instruments. I can play the way I feel, as if I was playing on stage! No corrections. Emotion is the only goal to tell my “Origine Orients”, my love of the deserts and the Mediterranean sea, so many spaces with a same and unique musical root, the Amân. The Amân is that feeling of beauty expressed by our people when grace touches them.
Here I am ready to tell you in music the Story of my Orients and of its Origin.
The musical journey begins with
1/ “Min Jouwwa” (from the inside). It is a love song, the annoucement of a separation. I mixed the percussions front to be the tic tac of a watch. Has the time of love an end or is it always in transformation?
2/ “Desert to Desert” is a theme played played with a bamboo flute as a slide and a Daf (round percussion) between my thighs and a bouzouki on my lap... I’m still not sure to be able to play in again juggling with four instruments!
3/ “Menz Baba” is a very important song to me. The armenian words tell the story of Khowrow Eram, my great grand father. His name sounds so near to Amir Khousrow, the sufi saint that I fully admire... Fate is another word for life.
4/ “Hidden Soul”. It is very rare to play the bass duduk the way I played it as a solo instrument. It is more often played as a drone so the melody of the duduk would fly. Please listen to the great Djivan Gasparyan, his sound is like honey! I played the bass duduk as an answer to the deep sound of the bamboo of the ney.
5/ I had much fun to compose and play “Saz Dance”! A harmonica around the neck, percussions on my foot and a turkish saz played like a percussion in the beginning of the song then strumming it normally with rattles round my ankles .
6/ “Mecatalavenis” (Did you anderstand?). This song in Greek tells the story of a Levantine who must leaves his land and who says to his dark haired lover: “ I don’t want to see you on the dock when I will take a boat to leave this place tomorrow, I don’t want to see your tears”... But the tears will fall. That is the story of my family: each generation had to leave the land of their birth. Before France Lebanon and before Turkey and before Greece and before Syria and before Armenia... Do the Nomads really choose to leave their land?
7/ With “Steppes”, it is a new experience. I have been working with a lebanese oriental dancer called Nawal Raad for a few years now. I invite her often to be on stage with me.
I wnated so much to have her on the Cd... But hearing a dancer is special... So I asked her to dance and move inside the perimeter of the microphones so we could record her movements and she did! We can hear the belts of “sequins” answering my percussions and my Lyra Kemencheh that greek and turkish special three strings violin.
8/ “Râyehh” (I am leaving). I wrote this text in french for a project called “Retour” (Way back). I was many times invited to play my music in Lebanon ... But it never worked till now.
IIn fact I never came back to the land where I was born since the day I had to leave, that means: february 15th 1975... The words in arabic say “I’m going and coming back”...
9/ “Anatolia” is played on the greek bouzouki, the idea of the whistle came on the spot while I was recording. I imagine this piece as music for film. Nawal danced also the way she did on “Steppes”.
10/ “Black Sea Blues” is a moment of improvisation that turned to be a sort of blues. The music from the Black Sea are very inspiring to me, they often have this blue note.
11/ On “Turkish Gypsy”, I also play the guitaroud with two different stompboxes. The fun with this tune is to play fast and faster to the limits!
12/ “Tchodjouk Guitté”, this turkish song tells the story of a kid leaving for somewhere far from his parents over the seas. This image keeps obssessing me, I was this kid and my father before me when he had to leave Smyrna on a boat as the town was burnt.
13/ “Farâché” is a happy dancing melody to ease a pain. Music has always been to me a therapy. I’ve practising Tai Chi Chuan for decades now. The movement and the body are united by the music and if it is a good music then it heels the one who is playing it and the one who has the pleasure to listen to it.
14/ And finally here is “Origine Orients” . To put an end to this journey, I played the bamboo saxophone from Colombia that I had already played in my previous CD “Oriental Voyage”. Here I had the idea of playing the music in a piano with the pedal on. The echoes come from the piano as a response to my notes.
I have the feeling that the world of my origins answers my breath. The music as well as the vibrations that live inside of me are captured here forever.
ABAJI
(“Origine Orients” was composed and played by ABAJI on vocals, bouzouki, saz, oudguitar, lyra kemencheh, percussions, harmonica, bamboo flute from Bali, armenian bass duduk and colombian bamboo saxophone.)
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Trans-Mediterranean Blues in Five Languages and the ...
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