أحمد [Ahmed]
Events
BIO
[Ahmed] is:
PAT THOMAS / piano
ANTONIN GERBAL / drums J
JOEL GRIP / bass
SEYMOUR WRIGHT / alto saxophone
[Ahmed] make music: to listen, dance and think to.
about the music of Ahmed Abdul-Malik. Music of heavy rhythm, repetition and syncopation set deep into an understanding of jazz and the obscure depths of its history.
that excavates, re-inhabits and uses a-new the now overlooked documents, and fragmentary plans, of his mid-20th century synthetic vision to produce a new jazz imagination for the 21st century.
Across their releases Wood Blues (Astral Spirits, 2024), Giant Beauty (Fönstret, 2024), Nights on Saturn (Communication) (Astral Spirits, 2022), Super Majnoon (East Meets West) (Otoroku, 2019), and New Jazz Imagination (Umlaut, 2017), the quartet of Pat Thomas, Antonin Gerbal, Joel Grip and Seymour Wright work and rework the music of the late Ahmed Abdul-Malik to create stamping, swinging, relentlessly propulsive music, where profundity and physicality root right back to ecstatic feeling.
Abdul-Malik was a NYC bassist, oudist, composer, educator and philosopher who fused aspects of American, Arabic and East African thought, ethics, meanings and beliefs in open and experimental ways to make vital, forward leaning jazz. [Ahmed] reimagine the notes of Malik as they push for new ground. Melodies respirate, swell, escalate and combust in a driving jazz which yes is technical, yes is accomplished, but ultimately just foot-to-the-floor swings.
