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he’s been looking for the right musicians to work with ever since and reckons she’s finally found them with her current line-up. “I think it’s a London thing, because fundamentally no two people are the same in London. More so than anywhere else in the world it attracts people from everywhere… so many different journeys, so many different life stories. So my band has got people from Colombia, Venezuela and Japan…it’s London!” These are flautist Mauricio Velasierra (fR341/2), percussionist Elizabeth Nott and double-bassist Shin Achiro Abe respectively. Funny I’d never made the connection between Sudanese and South Amer- ican music before. “Neither had I,” chuckles Amira. “But they’re very beautiful people, very sensitive, open musicians and I think that kind of connection can only happen when you’re with peo- ple like that. The important thing for me is to play with musi- cians who can accompany me on my journey, so that it can become our collective journey.”
Having found the musicians she’d been looking for, she worked on her sound for two years leading up to the release of the album and continues to develop it as she begins work on album number two. “It’s gonna be much deeper. The first album was a snapshot and a collection of ideas. The second album’s gonna have the Sudanese traditional thing as its core and all the other influences as its tools, to get to that source.”
When she first came to London, Amira had little contact with the local Sudanese community. However she’s connected with them via her music. “Suddenly a lot of people are hearing about me and coming to the gigs and that’s really wonderful. The best part is at the end of a gig when someone comes to you and says “Hey, you just took me back home. I’ve been away from Sudan for 30 years and hearing your music now reconnected me back there.”
inally I talk to the man who describes himself as “the ancestor of UK-based North African musicians.” Moroc- can singer and multi-instrumentalist Hassan Eraji first moved to these shores back in 1986 and has lived all over the UK. “Yes, well,” he chuckles. “I’m a nomad, it’s in the blood.” Hassan was born in the village of Tazart (east of Marrakech) to an Arabic mother and Berber father, his family spoke both languages and he got to hear both styles of music. Erraji Senior wanted his son to enter the world of academia, but there was no chance of that, as Hassan was bitten by the music bug very early on. He lost his sight aged six, but that wasn’t going to stop him. “It cost me a few accidents,” he tells me, “because once I’d lost my sight, it was more difficult to go out to where music sessions were taking place and the village was not paved and there was no electricity. I used to escape without my father knowing… so it cost me a few punishments as well.” From playing with local village bands he moved to Marrakech, where he learnt from leading folk musicians. His formal musical education started in Casablanca and ended in Brussels, studying Western classical music.
Hassan first came to the UK in 1984 to play a solo spot at
Womad, a couple of years later he formed his group Arabesque, with whom he released two fondly remembered albums on World Music Network’s Riverboat label. Initially a five-piece, the group slimmed down to a trio allowing more space for improvi- sation. Hassan is one of life’s natural improvisers and yet he’s adamant that what he does is neither jazz nor in the formal Ara- bic improvisatory style. “If I’d remained in Morocco, my music would maybe have been slightly different from the traditional, but it wouldn’t have been the way I really wanted to develop, because I find the UK audience fantastically open to different kinds of music. Back in the ’80s some folk festivals would say ‘We’d like you to come, but we are not sure. Because it’s some- thing that the audience are not used to,’ and then the people would love it.”
More recently he’s been working with a new set of musi- cians, the wonderfully named Moroccan Rollers, who can be heard on his latest (and I reckon best) release, 2010’s Awal Mara (World Village). But (like all those featured in this article) it’s in a live setting that Mr Erraji really shines. It’s more than the music (fine though that is). He exudes an energy, a spirit, that can lift an audience. “It’s something that is absolutely spontaneous. It’s like adrenalin. That’s my happiness. That’s the moment when I see that I’m actually communicating, sharing something I love so much with a crowd of people. It’s a need, a part of me and I’ve got to release that energy.”
www.myspace.com/elandaluzband www.myspace.com/560400248 http://amirakheir.com www.myspace.com/hassanerraji
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