sudani project

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THE SUDANI PROJECT is a Jazz/Gnawa dialogue activated in the collaboration of saxophonist/composer PATRICK BRENNAN, Gnawi M'allim NAJIB SUDANI, and drummer/percussionist/vocalist NIRANKAR KHALSA.

The musicians improvise together on equal terms, bringing with them their accumulated heritage, experience and experiments. The music naturally extends across the traditional trance song of the Moroccan Gnawa to the open parameters of energy playing. Gnawa call and response, dance and vamp weave with the riff and shout of its sister, the Blues. The music swings, sways and jumps in the exuberant encounter of these kindred musical currents.

The - which variously emphasizes traditional Sudani-Gnawa repertoire, interactive improvisations, and Khalsa's blues voice - was recorded in Essaouira in May '99 and has been released by Deep Dish (DD-104).

THE GNAWA are ethnic and cultural decendents of people who were subjected to the middle passage into slavery northward across the Sahara from what are now Mali, Senegal, Guinea, Nigeria... . The Gnawa have sustained and created a nightlong ritual called the Lila which involves music, dance, costume, incense and trance. The m'allim plays a wood and skin gut stringed instrument called a guinbri (also called a sintir or a hajhub) and is responsible for this complex ceremony which is organized around a long series of songs and musical themes addressed to God.

interview with patrick brennan about SUDANI on PRI's The World::

CHRIS NICKSON HEARS ABOUT HOW THE SUDANI PROJECT HAPPENED. - ARTICLE FROM FOLK ROOTS MAGAZINE.