Karim Othman Hassan: oud
Shakir Ertek: percussion
Chris Jarrett: piano
After playing together for the first time, it was obvious to the musicians
of the Chris Jarrett Trio that something quite new was to appear on the
music-scene. They called it:
"New-World-Music".
Chamber music, jazz and the music of the Near East are blended together to
new expressive forms without becoming flatly commercial or hackneyed. The
expressivity and sense of structure of the pianist Chris Jarrett, the
finely-threaded complexity of the percussionist Shakir Ertek and the earthy
songfulness of the oud-player Karim Othman Hassan are the ingredients of a
sensual, but completely new sound. The Chris Jarrett Trio proves, as well,
that the mixture of cultures doesn't have to lead to musical suicide.
Communicative confrontation is as much a part of New-World-Music as is
collective expression.
New-World-Music is music that can combine modern counterpoint with Arabic
melodies; music with colour, but without gawdiness; intelligent, but governed
by the heart; ancient and modern at once - in short:
fascinating entertainment.
Karim Othman Hassan (Austria), Oud (Arabic lute)
was born in 1969 in Berlin, Germany and grew up in Salzburg (Austria).
He has been living in Freiburg (Germany) since 1995, where he is active
as a teacher and musicologist in the field of classical Oriental music
theory. In the last few years, he has been working together with the
"Ensemble Zirafkand" to reconstruct performing practices of Ottoman
compositions. His studies of the "maquam iraqi" and iraqian folk
music led him to the ensemble "Shurupak", a group dedicated to the
musical traditions of Iraq. Karim Othman Hassan is member of the
Oriental-Jazz group "FisFüz", of the "Ensemble Sukun"
with the tabla-player Ranjith Gunatilleke, and performs in musical narrations
with the author Heiko Daniels. In spite of his life in Europe,
Karim Othman Hassan sees his style of playing
(the oud is a 1400-year-old Arabic instrument) as a voice of Iraq.
Shakir Ertek (Turkey), Percussion
was born in 1954 in Istanbul (Turkey). He moved to Germany in 1978. Since
he was 16 years of age, he has been performing on drums and percussion in
various formations. Shakir Ertek has an extremely varied repertoire which
includes classical Ottoman secular music, jazz, Latinamerican and Turkish folk
music, as well as flamenco and Arabic music. Shakir Ertek teaches percussion
and drums in Freiburg, Germany. He is one of the very few percussionist to
have succeded in organically combining the rich
traditions of Turkish rhythms with jazz.
Chris Jarrett (USA), Piano
grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania, USA. He began his
studies at the renowned Oberlin Conservatory of Music.He continued his
studies in Oldenburg (Germany) in the mid-80s. There he began his career
as a composer for ballet and film-music. Since then, he has continually
concertized in Germany, France, the U.S., Italy, Denmark, Poland,
Yugoslavia, Russia, Ukrainia, Switzerland and elsewhere, with solo piano
evenings of his own compositions. Chris Jarrett has appeared on several
CD-productions with renowned artists as well as having produced four solo
CDs of his own. In recent years, he has often appeared as a pianist of
so-called "world music" - especially often in Tunisia. He has
worked with musicians such as Zoltan Lantos, Muhammed Zine-el-Abidine,
Ramesh Shotham, Dhafir Youssef, Urna Chahar Tugchi and Dorsaf Hamdani.
At present, he is also working on an opera about the life of
the English poet John Donne (1572-1631).
