Description
The music of northern Africa has enjoyed an increasing popularity over the past decade and its great variety is revealed on this follow-up to the equally worthwhile first volume of Sahara Groove. Balancing the traditional and contemporary Saharan music, the set moves along at a clip, each selection offering a different glimpse into the richness of the region’s music. Morocco’s Chalf Hassan (who has performed with Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Robert Plant) welds trancelike percussion and lute with an intense rock-like rhythm on “Tarida Hawzi,” and Algerian rai singer Cheb Nacim brings a modified Western dance beat and female background singers into his “Khabi Serak Ya Ghaefl Wa Aqra Hadrek.” Hossam Ramzy, the superb Egyptian-born drummer, lends a persistent rhythm to “El-Hawzy,” playing in tandem with Aziz Bin Salim’s airy flute solo, and Ramzy also teams with the Egyptian saxmant Rafat Misso on the album’s nod to contemporary jazz, “El Shouma.” Cheikha Remitti, a true Algerian legend, is represented by the chaotic “El Dzair,” in which the Arabian clarinet called the magruna collides with an army of percussion to keep things lively. ~ Jeff Tamarkin
