The Independet: Ahmed Mukhtar: Sound of Baghdad (Interview)

Mukhtar at British Musical Magazines:
Rhythms of Baghdad
Seductive Oud and Percussion music from an Iraqi duo.
Songlines Magazine (May/July 2003)
By: BILL Badley.
There's particular Poignancy about reviewing any CD of Iraqi music at the present time. Since the middle ages, Baghdad has been revered as one of the undisputed centres of Arab music, though it's difficult to know exactly what the situation is for the musicians there at the moment.
There are however, a number of extremely fine Iraqi performers more readily accessible to western audiences and two of them have come together to make this interesting CD.
There has been a trend for Oud (lute) players to make solo recordings, but on this disc the Oud is supported by a percussionist, as is common in live performance. The structure of Sattar Al-Saadi's subtly muscular rhythms allows Ahmed mukhtar's oud-playing the freedom to wave and beckon seductively.
Consequently, even very simple tunes, like the traditional 'Souq Baghdadi' and the Persian Gulf Style 'Nada'a al bahr' keep the ear entranced. Classical Arab music has never been a closed shop and often freely borrowed from neighbouring styles. Mukhtar and al-saadi continue this magpie tradition with varying levels of success: the flamenco-tinged 'Espania' veers towards cliché but the inventive, and very contemporary, improvisation of 'Muntasaf -al-lilis a fine example of modern Arab Art Music.
The recorded sound is beautifully warm and the individual timbres of the various percussion instruments are particularly well captured- al- saadi's rhythms will probably gat sampled and looped to death.

Rhythms of Baghdad:
By Ahmed Mukhtar and Sattar Al-Saadi
An album of homage to Iraq's ancient traditions
NEXUS Magazine (April/May 2003)
Reviewed by Richard Giles

Ahmed Mukhtar and Sattar Al-Saadi live outside Iraq-a reflection on the situation in their home country but have collected traditional music from older style Baghdad ancestral musical lines.
Ahmed performs on the Oud (pear shaped, short lute, and Sattar is a percussionist, using the tabla, riqq, khishba, tar and other drums, and also plays the nay (Arab reed flute). An album of homage to Iraq's ancient traditions-, which we pray won't be bombed into oblivion in the future.

Rhythms of Baghdad:
A good music seem to jump out of time and place
Taplas Magazine (April/May 2003)
By: Rob Smith

The Syrian maqams are various recordings compiled from the collections of Deben Bhattacharya, the relentless documenter of little heard musics from all over Asia, whose work I have talked about previously. Informal recordings with small audiences typify the man's recorded archive and are again in evidence here. The maqam is the pan -Arabic system of modes and melodic patterns collated from extensive research into practice by eighth century Syrian musicologist Ibn Misjah.
The standard description of maqam as a system of modes and melodic types always make them sound terribly restrictive (as can similar description of the related raga system of India and the Persian dastgahs). Hearing the music can, on first acquaintance with their solo manifestation, confirm this, but it rewards careful, repeated listening and the subtlety of expression from within the system sounds like exploration of a small musical space, almost a search for self, like a prayer.
When listening to ensemble renditions, however, one is quickly caught up in the ecstatic repetitive statements over driving percussion. The ensemble music here is concentrated on the second half of the disc. Those who find the solo work heavy going should make straight for tracks six and seven to get an accessible route into this refined and highly cultured musical offering.
The album from Baghdad, played significantly here by two exiles, comprises more contemporary and better-recorded pieces by an oud and percussion duet. The percussionist, al saadi, either has extra hands or some tasteful overdubbing has been used to give richer percussive backdrops. These texture seem to free up Mukhtar to do some really spacious playing, much of which is a delight.
The comparison with the music of the Songhai project (musicians from Spain and Mali) is very striking and should wake up those who still believe that Spain's guitar traditions were brought in by Gypsies! One track is even called Espania.
The structures and tonalities here are closer to western scales and forms, with discernible rondos and variations and sometimes heads and improvisations familiar to any jazz listener. At other times one can hear similarities with American bluegrass. Isn't that a strange Juxtaposition. At other times they remind me of Gismonti/valascocelos duo, but then good music always seem to jump out of time and place, doesn't it?
This is definitely a very classy collection. The last four tracks are percussion solos that almost sound as if they are aimed squarely at sample bandits. If, like me you are lucky enough to have a home to live in, let this ring through your abode, while you ponder the injustices and complexities of the world we live in.

Rhythms of Baghdad Mukhtar can make it dream, gallop, or thunder, and he uses silence to great effect.
The Independent on Sunday/23 March 2003
Michael Church -have been Send

Oud player Ahmed Mukhtar and percussionist Sattar Al-Saadi are Iraqi émigrés who are now passing on their musical skills to students in London and Amsterdam: this new record is their timely assertion of Iraqi traditional music's timeless beauties. Mukhtar was taught by Munir Bashir, who was the greatest oud player of the 20th century and whose maqam- based style traced its lineage back to Iraq's musical golden age. A millennium ago, Baghdad was the musical capital of the civilised world: it was where Arab-Islamic music theory was codified before spreading west to Spain, and those codifications are still observed in Mukhtar's practice. The unfretted oud may be the hardest of all instruments to play, with its delicately flattened intervals, but Mukhtar extracts magic: he can make it dream, gallop, or thunder, and he uses silence to great effect