During the Grateful Dead's historic 1978 performances in Egypt, percussionist Mickey Hart set time aside to travel with longtime friend Hamza El Din and make field recordings of the country's richly varied folkloric music. The music of Egypt can be classified into four basic regional styles -- the southernmost style of the Aswan area, divided into Arabic-speaking Nubians and a Nubian-speaking sector divided into Mahasi and Mattokki; the style of Luxor, commonly known as Sa'ed; the style of El-Meniya to the Mediterranean Sea, called the Fellahim; and the urban music of such cities as Cairo and Alexandria.

The first four tracks of this exotically beautiful album hail from the Aswan region and typify a rhythm known as "moon fever." The first song celebrates the exhumation of a dignitary due to the flooding caused by the Aswan Dam. Two are wedding songs, and a fourth is a traditional religious song praising Allah.

A fifth track represents the folk music of Sa'ed, known for the great variety of instruments used in this joyful call-and-response style music generally heard at celebratory gatherings; the final track exemplifies the more western compositional style of modern popular forms.

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In the USA

In the USA

In the USA

Composed and performed on traditional Near Eastern instruments by accomplished Arab artist Ali Jihad Racy, this CD is a musical tribute to the ancient treasures and religious symbolism of the Egyptian Book of The Dead.

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If you think belly-dancing music is simple, this CD from Cairo-born percussionist Hossam Ramzy, the leader of Pharaoh's Egyptian Ensemble (he also toured with Robert Plant and Debbie Harry), will correct that assumption. Ramzy is a master of the darbouka, the Egyptian version of the tabla; the title of this CD is actually an inverted play on words for "solo tabla." It contains about 45 minutes of intricate and ingenious pre-Islamic, Arabic, and world-beat-influenced solos and rhythms. With other percussion instruments supporting the darbouka, Ramzy creates a fresh, fertile crescent of sound stretching from the Nile to the Middle East, Morocco, and beyond. The track "Brazilian Pearls" features samba-fied grooves thrown in for good measure. An informative booklet details the rhythms of these Saharan syncopations, from "West Naima (Naima's Hip)" to "Samya's Solo." With stealth and skill, Hossam Ramzy shows us the legacy of his land through the belly dancer's hypnotic hips. --Eugene Holley Jr.

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While the Sufi musical tradition of Pakistan is well documented in the popular press because of the work of the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and his predecessors, the Sabri Brothers (both represented with excellent tracks in this collection), the wealth of great art from this religious culture is often left unheard. This two-CD set rectifies the problem with style and beauty. Not only Pakistan, but Egypt, Senegal, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and many other countries in Asia and the Middle East have rich traditions of devotional music from loosely defined Sufi roots, from the simplest solo singer to lush orchestras of percussion, harmoniums, and massed voices. Each of the 21 tracks on Sufi Soul is worth your attention: the incredible passion of a women's choir from Uzbekistan; the sparse, gentle flute solo of ney master Hassan Kassayi; a rare tanbur (lute) and vocal track by Ostad Elahi; a Balachi song for sorud (fiddle). There are standout tracks that need to be mentioned. The frame drum and qanun (zither) come together in Ensemble Al-Kindi for a dramatic, almost avant-garde feeling. An amazing Persian singer, Khatereh Parvaneh, presents the poetry of Rumi in a piece in dastgah shour; she performs with minimum ornamentation to maximum effect, accompanied only by a hammered zither. Senegalese artist Musa Dieng Kala offers one of the most stirring vocal pieces on the set, an a cappella masterwork. As with most of the Network sets, this is a gorgeous package, with great photos and excellent liner notes on the history and the music, in English, French, and German. --Louis Gibson

In the USA

In the USA

This album is based on a challenging idea: Try to recreate a musical form from a culture and period that left behind no recordings or musical notation, using only history, a description of the instruments, and some historical artifacts. It takes intuition as much as scholarship and craftsmanship to recreate the ancient instruments of Egypt--from simple percussion and flutes to boat-shaped and triangular harps and trumpets. Atherton, with his musicians and singers, exhibits both innovation and skill, offering not so much a look at how the music actually was, but more an intuitive guess at how it might have been, keeping the music first and history a close but well-heeled second. It can be frantic one moment and somber the next, as each of these lengthy song suites develops organically around a song or a piece of poetry--offering both early music and improvisational music aficionados something unique. Excellent recording quality is augmented by well-documented notes on history and instrumental research. --Louis Gibson

In the USA