A'HAZEEJ

A'HAZEEJ

Tareq Rantisi

Abstract

“A'hazeej” - meaning songs or the songs they sing in Arabic - is a study of musics from the Arabian Peninsula. The project documents these rich musical styles, never commercialized outside the Persian Gulf and, using Jazz idioms, works to create a unique experiment in new Arabic Music, enriched by the Jazz tradition and approach. A'hazeej simultaneously seeks to create accessible information about these sparsely-researched musical styles, making important material available to a broad audience. The project as presented here is a case study based on five songs: three from the “Sea Arts,” one a mix of Bedouin music and music brought to the Gulf by slaves from East Africa and one an Urban Art. I approached the work as a performer, educator and composer, not as an ethnomusicologist nor theorist. First listening, transcribing, and internalizing the melodies and complex polyrhythms, I then arranged and composed two songs and three instrumentals for a ten-piece jazz ensemble. Moving forward, A’hazeej will focus on women musicians and women’s “art forms” in order to highlight their buried contribution to this old tradition.

Publication Date

7-1-2019

Campus

Boston Campus

Comments

Project Components: paper (.pdf), presentation (.pdf), audio files (ZIP file containing 5 .wav files), videos (ZIP file containing 3 .mp4 files), scores (ZIP file containing 5 .pdf documents).

A'HAZEEJ

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