Ensemble Fanaa is the meeting point between myriad musical styles in the African American, North African and Middle Eastern traditions. Daro Behroozi (alto saxophone/bass clarinet), John Murchison (upright bass, gimbri) and Dan Kurfirst (drum set/frame drums) utilize their thorough experience in these musics to explore the possibilities of applying approaches learned from the traditions of African-American improvisation to an emerging global musical culture. This enables them to blend and shift through a diverse range of music making practices as they continue to develop a new rhythmic, melodic, harmonic, and sonic vocabulary, characterized by polyrhythmic drones, chromaqamatic extemporizations, and arrhythmic grooves. Their sound is often centered around the use of the gimbri, a bass-register instrument from Morocco that is primarily used in traditional Moroccan Healing/Trance music (Gnawa).
Daro Behroozi - alto saxophone/bass clarinet
John Murchison - gimbri/double bass
Dan Kurfirst - percussion/drum set
1. Creation
2. Traces (Part 1)
3. Imran
4. Water Song
5. Sujood
6. Now What 05:00
7. Traces (Part 2)
8. Yobati/Breath 06:36
Recorded and mixed by Jonathan Jetter at Right Angle Recording
Mastered by Kane Mathis at Kassata Sound
Illustration/calligraphy by Jena Argena
