On his new ECM album After the Last Sky oudist Anouar Brahem is joined by jazz multi-instrumentalist Django Bates and bassist Dave Holland . Plus, in a serendipitous link to that ultimate opposer of musician's indifference Pau Casals, long-time ECM maverick cellist Anja Lechner plays with Brahem for the first time, In his 1986 book After the Last Sky , Edward Said evoked Palestinian history in musical terms, as a "counterpoint (if not cacophony) of multiple, almost desperate dramas, with "no central image (exodus, holocaust, long march)... Without a center. Atonal". In a thoughtful booklet essay Adam Shatz explains that Brahem's " After the Last Sky is in no way a didactic work of art and still less an anthemic expression of protest" and goes on to point out that "Brahem is Tunisian, not Palestinian, but he is no stranger to the tragedy of the Palestinian people". Most tellingly Shatz recounts how we are all t...
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"There are as many ways to God as the number of human beings on earth." This quote alone is a representation of the vision of Sufism.
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the letter "Waw", which in Arabic means "and." The Sufis call it the letter of Love, because without it, nothing can come together. We say "the sea and the sky," "Man and Woman." The"Waw" is the meeting place, thus it is the place of Love. It is also the letter of the traveler, because it gathers together things and beings.'
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