Musicians against indifference

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 to blame: 

Much of the music on this album is mournful, and it could hardly be otherwise.... In the months that preceded the recording session, [Brahem's] mind turned inexorably to the people of Gaza and Palestine, and to a question that still plagues him: "What allows for this indifference?".....  Reducing this conflict to a simple opposition between Jews and Muslims is unbearable to me," Brahem told me. "The real barriers are neither religious or cultural, but rather result from a growing separation between those who denounce injustice and those who who choose to remain indifferent". 

The barrier between opposing cruelty and looking away from it (or explaining it away) is in no way confined to Israel/Palestine itself; it exists in every country, even in every heart.... After the last sky, after the ruins of Gaza, Brahem and its ensemble imagine a future of Palestinian freedom - the day when, as Darwish writes, "our blood will plant its olive trees".

Photo of Gaza City destruction via France24 and Omar El-Qattaa / AFP/File

Comments

Pliable said…
....and hat tip to another opposer of musicians' indifference Ilan Volov - https://seenandheard-international.com/2025/09/a-splendid-fascinating-and-at-the-end-courageous-prom-led-by-ilan-volkov/
11:27 am
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