Trumpeter, flugelhornist and composer Yazz Ahmed has created her most exquisite sonic world yet on A Paradise In The Hold, 10 tracks of magnetic, boundary-transcending jazz that intricately blend influences from her British-Bahraini heritage. Drawn to storytelling, Ahmed writes compositions that tend to have a narrative flow. On this record, her approach is shaped by two traditional forms: joyful Bahraini wedding poems and the sorrowful work songs of the pearl divers. It’s a natural pairing of her interests, incorporating the cultural expressions of weddings with the pure folklore of the pearl divers, who no longer exist in terms of a workforce but remain enshrined in the memory of the uniquely Bahraini genre known as fidjeri, or sea music.
The journey that led to this album began in 2014, during a research trip taken by Ahmed to Bahrain, the island nation between Qatar and the northeastern coast of Saudi Arabia where she spent her early childhood. Some of the former pearl divers have formed choirs that tour around the Gulf, so she was able to see the Pearl Divers of Muharraq perform at their clubhouse. She sought further inspiration in local bookshops and found it in wedding poems, which often celebrated beauty by connecting it with nature. Her grandfather even sang her songs from his own wedding day. She was just as intrigued by the celebratory music of traditional women’s drumming circles, the way they offered a strong yet playful contrast to the melancholy fidjeri of the pearl divers. Ahmed braids it all together in the hypnotic atmosphere of Paradise…, deftly incorporating traditional polyrhythms with the textural possibilities of modern music.
Ahmed tends to work her subjects into the very form of her compositions. On Paradise…, this process is subtle but refined. The pearl divers sing fidjeri when they’re out at sea, songs about missing loved ones back home. But they also incorporate the actions of a mariner into the music itself, the sounds of pulling the sails and heaving the rope. Ahmed took all these little characteristics and chopped them up, processing them into something unrecognisable and new, which then inspired her to write basslines and melodies. The original field recordings can’t be heard on the album, but their spirit is integral to its very existence.
The songs here, however, are not the first to arise out of Ahmed’s experiences in 2014. That would be the 90-minute suite “Alhaan al Siduri”, named for the Epic of Gilgamesh’s Siduri, a wise woman who lives on a beautiful island, which some scholars have suggested is Bahrain. Ahmed reworked that suite’s main theme into the stunning album opener “She Stands On The Shore”. The trumpet is one of the very first sounds we hear, setting an expressive, yearning tone that will reappear throughout. Samy Bishai’s pensive violin matches this tone just prior to Natacha Atlas’ voice entering the frame, building upon the reverent atmosphere before swirling synths give way to unbeatable grooves.
Ahmed is in full-on underwater sci-fi mode on the mythic, haunting “Mermaids’ Tears”, inky synths and gauzy trumpet best appreciated with a close listen on headphones. But the album, which marks her first time writing for voice, may be at its very best on “Though My Eyes Go To Sleep My Heart Does Not Forget You”, the lyrics of which were adapted by Ahmed from the words of a pearl divers’ standard, first in English then translated to Arabic. The chants that open this composition are instantly reminiscent of an Arabic-infused take on Alice Coltrane’s ashram recordings, shot through with synth fizz and percussive handclaps. The voices swirl around each other, a spiral of emotion guiding us through the terrain of the song. It closes with an exultant trumpet solo from Ahmed as the final bass note rings out, akin to Ron Carter’s hypnotic grooves on Alice Coltrane’s Ptah, The El Daoud.
A wealth of instrumentation gives this album its shape and textures, but Ralph Wyld’s vibraphone, George Crowley’s bass clarinet and Alcyona Mick’s Fender Rhodes in particular really fill out the aquatic themes, able to evoke gurgling bubbles and rickety wooden ships in equal measure. The range of vocalists brings us back to Earth, grounding the music to the lives of the people who inspire the emotion behind it all. Paradise… brims with life and imagination, humming with the brilliant paradox of a communal spirit imbued with Ahmed’s creative imprint over every note. It’s the work of a composer wrapping her arms around what is possible, surfacing triumphantly with a new form of beauty.
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