Slinky, Haunting, Jazz-Tinged Middle Eastern Sounds from Brian Prunka’s Nashaz

by delarue

Oudist Brian Prunka’s Nashaz takes slinky, brooding Middle Eastern themes and adds a two-horn jazz frontline and bass for a sound that’s more jazz-inflected levantine music than levantine jazz. Their new album what reminds of Dimitris Mahlis’ oud-and-drums project Wahid with horns, and in its more intricate moments, Amir ElSaffar‘s jazzier Two Rivers Ensemble. Prunka’s expansive instrumentals go on for eight or nine minutes apiece with plenty of room for soloing. Prunka typically starts out slowly, feels around for his footing and then takes his time before he leaves the runway, with all kinds of masterful ornamentation and dynamics. The album gets better as it goes along; the mood is enhanced by the natural reverb in the room where it was recorded, giving extra resonance to Kenny Warren’s trumpet and Nathan Herrera’s sax and bass clarinet.

The coyly titled opening track, Hijaz Nashaz sets the stage for the rest of the album, but counterintuitively: it’s the smoky sax that opens the song with a lengthy introduction over flurries of oud. There’s plenty of conversational interplay over Apostolis Sideris’ growly, incisive bass, the horns sticking to the western chromatic scale while Prunka gets to revel in luscious Middle Eastern modal microtones. Khartoum is more rhythmic, Prunka diving to the cello-like low registers of the oud, the horns fluttering and diverging as it winds down.

Andalus juxtaposes moody bass clarinet and snakecharmer ney flute over a mournful, elegaically slow groove, Prunka finally taking his haunting, desolate solo spiraling to a big crescendo. Qassabij’s Nightmare is less of a nightmare than an anthem, unless you count the anxiously sputtering horn break midway through.

City of Sand emerges from a moody oud waltz intro to an Iraqi-tinged theme, with a neat rondo riff and more varied, droll percussion (by Vin Scialla and George Mel) than the other numbers. Jurjina sets all kinds of edgy riffage from all the instruments over a tricky Madeconian-tinged tempo that shifts back and forth unexpectedly. Then they take it over to North Africa for the swaying, levantine style Al-Ghayb, the oud and then the bass clarinet sticking close to the ground with pensive, grey-sky solos. The album winds up animatedly with Ajam, which is actually two jams, the first brightly dancing, the second suddenly more ominous and insistently hypnotic. This album will probably resonate more with fans of music from the Fertile Crescen than with jazz fans – although anyone with a love of haunting, emotionally gripping sounds ought to check it out.