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CD Review
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rootsworld.com, CD Review >>
Algerian Sephardic pianist and singer Maurice El
Médioni has recorded with Egyptian master
percussionist Mahmoud Fadl; Iraqi-Israeli
composer, violinist and oud player Yair Dalal;
the Orchestre Andalou d'Israel; and Klezmer
standouts Frank London and David Krakauer. Born
in 1928, he comes from a distinguished musical
family of Oran, Algeria. A self-taught pianist,
he was accomplished enough by age 14 to charm
U.S. troops with boogie-woogie favorites after
their 1942 landing in Algeria. He moved to France
when Algeria gained independence in 1962 and
became a pioneering Rai bandleader, fusing
Sephardic, Andalusian, Cuban and western jazz and
pop influences with his fluid, driving percussive
keyboard technique. On Descarga Oriental
("eastern jam session") El Médioni, now based in
Marseilles, combines forces with Cuban American
percussionist Roberto Rodríguez, who also arranged and produced.
Rodríguez left Cuba at age nine with his family
for Miami, where he would play drums on the bar
mitzvah and Yiddish theatre circuit, while
majoring in jazz and studio music at the
University of Miami. In New York he has gigged
diversely, most notably on the downtown
experimental Klezmer scene. His latest release
(as leader of Septeto Rodríguez) is Baila! Gitano
Baila! (Tzadik), which features (among others)
reedman Matt Darriau (of Klezmatics fame).
Rodríguez's eclectic résumé also includes work
with Ruben Blades, Lester Bowie, Randy Brecker,
T-Bone Burnett, Cachao, Paquito D'Rivera, Julio
Iglesias, Joe Jackson, Dave Liebman, Miami Sound
Machine, Mark Ribot (Los Cubanos Postizos), Paul
Simon, Phoebe Snow and John Zorn.
These two rootless cosmopolitans met in Paris in
2005 and soon decided to record, making common
cause with a driving blend of musical idioms.
Exploring a repertoire of all El Médioni
originals, they find a groove from the first note
and never relent. Joining Rodríguez and El
Médioni (who adds organ to his vocal and piano
performances) is tres wizard Ben Lapidus (leader
of the breakout New York ensemble Sonido Isleño;
professor of tres, guitar and world music at New
School University and CUNY; and
scholar-in-residence at the Jewish Museum).
Rounding out the date are New Yorkers Oscar Oñoz
(trumpet), Jennifer Vincent (bass), Nir Z
(darbuka), and Natalie Michán (vocals on "Oran,
Oran"). They cook up a transatlantic plenitude of
moros, judios y cristianos with subtle Sephardic
seasoning, sizzling in the present while also
invoking the utopian society of Moorish Andalusia
that, if it lives on only in the imagination,
flows here as a wellspring of artistic inspiration. - Michael Stone 05/25/06
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