In their second Songlines album, oud master Gordon Grdina, bassist Mark Helias and cellist Hank Roberts perform original compositions that fuse Persian and Arabic musical forms with modernist improvisations.
– Mark Werlin, AllAboutJazz

Safar-e-Daroon is the second release by The Marrow, Gordon Grdina’s Vancouver/New York project adapting Arabic and Persian forms to a jazz approach and ethos. For Grdina there is nothing exotic in this endeavor – he’s been playing oud since he was a teenager and first recorded with it on his Songlines debut, Think Like the Waves (2006); his Arabic/jazz 10-piece, Haram, debuted in 2008 and released Her Eyes Illuminate in 2012. The Marrow explores a deeper level of expressive fusion between worlds by means of original compositions (some more or less rooted in tradition, others more fluid in the influences they stir together and the emotions they evoke) and performers whose intuitive grasp of the material and group dynamics is very finely honed.

As Grdina notes, “This recording carries on the development of the ensemble from where Ejdeha left off. The group is defining its own aesthetic, combining aspects of the Persian dastgah and Arabic maqam systems with free improvisation and harmonic fluidity. The band is dedicated to creating modern music that pays homage to tradition while championing personal expression. The title Safar-e-daroon means ‘inner journey.’ The group as a whole and each of the individual musicians are searching inward to best express their own experience of life, love and sorrow. We hope this music will help the listener on their own Safar-e-daroon.”

The program is organized as a sort of rough analogue to this inner journey. It starts with the title tune, the one most structured within the Arabic modal system (maqam) and which in its second half is played in the Iraqi folk georgina 10/16 rhythm. It also features an exciting oud solo. “Mini-con” features a high-flying solo by the newest member of the group, the in-demand Canadian violinist Josh Zubot. Says Grdina: “He plays with an intensity and fluidity that I rarely hear. He has a history with many different styles of music and is able to bring out aspects of all of them while maintaining his own voice.”

Next comes “Calling on You,” one of three pieces composed by Mark Helias, who has been collaborating with Grdina now for over a decade – another departure from Ejdeha, where Grdina was the sole composer. His pieces “are less Arabic sounding and stretch the oud into territory less travelled. It is a language that all of us except maybe [percussionist] Hamin Honari are more familiar with.” Helias also fulfills an essential role as a performer: “Due to his deep understanding of the jazz, free improv and also the Arabic tradition through his work with the Lebanese singer/oud player Marcel Khalife he creates a fluid movement on the bottom that supports while not directing and tying the music down. It retains a sense of ambiguity that for me is essential to giving the music life.”

Hank Roberts contributes a gorgeous, yearning, raga-like solo to “Shamshir,” a more stately tune situated squarely in the Arabic tradition. And Iranian-Canadian percussionist Honari is the focus of his piece “Illumination,” a composition with a peaceful vibe that is based on daf rhythmic variations and development. (The daf is a large Persian and Arabic frame-drum with metal ringlets.) “The melodic material is then developed with a sense of feeling these rhythms together without real solo sections but instead a sense of group interaction while living within a rhythmic structure.”

“Convergence” invokes the music of West Africa through “an osmosis that brings together different influences like Boubacar Traore and Hamza El Din with a sense of folk simplicity and directness…a feeling of transcending differences and celebrating the similarities and connections between influences.” The last tune, “Gabriel James,” which sounds like a kind of pan-folk anthem, closes the circle. “I wrote the melodies for the strings on top of the harmonic structure in a sort of chorale style. I think the band really created something beautiful out of it.”

Recorded October 29, 2018 and mixed by John Raham at Afterlife Studios, Vancouver. Additional recording by Hank Roberts at Catbird Studios, Ithica, NY. Mastered by Chris Gestrin at Public Alley 421.