F. Roots Magazine: Maud Hand meets an Iraqi Oud Master resident in the UK. Ahmed Mukhtar
Ahmed Mukhtar Oud player is full of fire, but it’s fire that gently yet firm like his political perspective on Iraq, the country of his birth,’’ wherever I play, I take the opportunity to remained people of the ancient culture of my country. We don’t just have war, chemical weapons and dictator. We are heirs to one of the world’s first civilizations, particular during the Abbasid period (750- 1258), When Arab, Kurd, Turk and Jews lived together in harmony and excelled in music, philosophy and the arts’’

The Abbasid spirit infused Ahmed’s early days. He was born and raised in Al-Thawrah, a poor suburb of Baghdad and home to farming emigrants from the south.’’ Though I grow up in an urban setting my root are rural with music playing a central role. There was always chanting and signing, from rocking the baby asleep to humming en route to market. Prising your pals or fighting enemies-what- ever the situation, we were innately move to write a lyrical poem to suit,’’ he laugh.

There’s a lot of laughter from Ahmed, an expression of a spacious spirit capable of transcending the religious outlook of this paternal relative, not lease his six uncles who abhorred the musician’s lifestyle. ‘‘My father was more relax, probably because of my mother, whose entire family loves music and all things cultural. He’s grudging lay accepted my choice. He had no option’’ Ahmed recalls, ‘’ I couldn’t help myself, willing to do it in secret at start.

It was the music of Jamil Bashir that first inspired Ahmed. Jamil, brother to the even more famous Munir Bashir, was a singer and Oud player who taught at the Iraqi Music institute as a 10- year- old, I realised that the Oud was as much about the instrument’s ancient history as its technical mastery, so read all I could about middle Eastern Music.

Ahmed’s young brother, a composer now living in Dubai and his neighbour, Ishaq, were his first teacher. With their encouragement he enrolled at the institute Of Music where he was 14. His tutor was Ganam Hadad, one of the country’s master and leading exponent of the Iraqi style. The style evolved in the early 1900s and was influence by the rich Abbasid heritage.’’ It’s a tradition style of doing improvisation known as Taqasim on Arabic scale or Maqams. It’s as mach as Tarab which means enjoyment is it as about expression, but you can’t have enjoyment, you mast also have the techniques to express the feeling’’.

Ahmed clearly had the right combination of expression and technical mastery. By his third year, Ganam Hadad advised him to pursuer a solo career. ‘‘The Oud consumed my live then. I’d leave home at eight in the morning and return in the evening around nine. All day I’d be busy practising, taking lessons or losing myself in the library to sharpen my intellectual understanding of the instrument’’.

What Ahmed discovered through his studies was the Oud owes its tradition as mach to Jewish, Turkish, Kurdish and Persian idioms as it in does to Arabic ones. His repertoire always reflected this inclusive legacy.’’ Narrow nationalism his no please. Music is for live in the widest sense and it’s up to me as a musician universal in my approach and choice of material’’. This universal dispassion did no set easily in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, where differences were actively encouraged to enforce dictatorial control. ‘’ He has hunkering back to the Ottoman Empire where people were divided through ignorance. Yet in the neighbourhood of my youth, Arabs, Sunni and Shia, Kurd and member of the Sabi religion lived harmony.

After Ahmed completed his musical studies, he pursued a freelance career, per forming with the Arabic Orchestra of music And Muashshaht. Muashshaht An old style of singing that goes with the Oud. When the inevitable call to military server came, Ahmed left Iraq. ‘’ I did not want to fight my neighbours and in my heart I didn’t believe in Saddam’s regime. In 1990 a Kurdish friend helped Ahmed get to Iran where he ended up in prison.’’ Back then musicians were forbidden in the Islamic republic of Iraq so they kept me in an isolated cell for five months. It was horrible.’’

When he was released, Ahem headed to Syria where he worked as a celebrated musician. Yet his comfort was short- live. By 1998 the relationship between Iraq and Syria had improved. After that he might end up being to forced to return to Iraq, Ahmed came to Britain where he application for asylum and British citizenship was eventually granted. ‘’ In Arabic culture when you go to desert and a traveler shares his water with you, you are forever indebted to his kindness. That how you feel about Britain. Not one of my neighboring Islamic saved my from the evil Iraqi dictatorship, yet here I’m allowed to study my music and live in peace.

Ahmed application to his music fruit. Together with percussion, Satter Al- Saadi, he’s released Rhythm of Baghdad, a collocation of original composition and reworking of traditional tunes.’’ Satter has a wonderful imagination so we are always trying to create new rhythm. It helps that I also studied percussion. So I’ve a solid understanding of rhythm and tone. ‘‘Neither is Ahmed afraid to experiment, as hints of Jazz and American blue-grass improvisation seep through the sound. ‘’My mentor, Ganam Hadad, actively encourages it, saying everything traditional was new at some point.’’

Lucky the students who work with Ahmed Mukhtar at the school of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he teaches whilst reading master there him self. Luckier still, the musician back home who are benefiting from Ahmed’s fundraising and new working with European musician and institutions, to ensure that the ancient Iraq musical culture and infrastructure revives post-Saddam Hessian.

You can read more about Ahmed Mukhtar at BBC Radio3’s World On Your Street via www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/world/onyourstreet/masahmed.shtmi.