When the whole world seems to
be losing its collective mind, music remains an important--sometimes
only--means of communication between battling factions who actually
know very little about one another. Ustad (an honorific granted to
Muslim musical icons) Omar is a revered master of the rabab, a
short-necked plucked lute with a plangent, gutty tone. He performs
here with a youthful Indian tabla (a hand drum capable of wide
variations of pitch) player named Zakhir Hussain, who has since
achieved international stardom. Stylistically, the music seems to
have much in common with Indian classical traditions, although it is
less languid, more direct, and not constructed over an underlying
drone. These five tracks were recorded during a 1974 performance at
the University of Washington in Seattle. Both men are captured at
their fiery best, goading one another into explosive bursts of
complex time signatures and breathtaking melodic invention.
This disc, from a French label, is a brief
compendium of traditional Afghan music, including the zither and
other local stringed instruments, as well as the Indian tabla.
Afghan classical music will remind the listener of the musics of
Central Asia, India, Pakistan and even China, and harkens back to a
time in which Afghanistan was a land of international commerce,
culture and tribal religion. For those wishing to find out something
about an Afghanistan that time has forgotten, this disc is a good
choice.
