Ejdeha

Bassist Mark Helias and cellist Hank Roberts have sterling credits and broad experience in modern jazz and new creative music. Roberts, a longtime collaborator of guitarist Bill Frisell, effortlessly blends into the intricate,  sometimes delicate, other times high-risk arrangements. There are dark, brooding excursions propelled by middle eastern vamps as well as through-composed works (“Wayward”) that relate to the music on Grdina’s preceding Songlines album, “Inroads”.
Helias’ deep, rich bass, and the diverse sounds percussionist Hamin Honari elicits from the tombak, daf, and frame drum, are presented in vivid and warm recorded sound by engineer John Raham. Mastering of the original 24/96 release is by Vancouver’s most valuable player, pianist/composer/mastering engineer Chris Gestrin. As with all of the Songlines releases, NativeDSD’s higher rate versions shouldn’t be missed!

The Marrow delivers Grdina’s intricate compositions with an organic fluidity, adapting superbly to the complex quarter-tones-based modes, or to the more ambitious and contrapuntally through-composed piece, “Wayward”, which relates to Grdina’s compositions for Inroads (reviewed below). Grdina leads the quartet with reserved yet assured playing, different from his urgent tone as a guitarist. His immediate, telepathic interplay with Honari dictates the suggestive pulse of his compositions. He improvises freely on the title piece between different maqams - Nava, Saba, Nahawand and Rast in a natural, poetic ease and irreverent approach that no traditional oud player will allow himself/herself. Some pieces like “Bordeaux Bender” suggest more open, exploratory improvisations while others as “Full Circle” offer conventional, more simple and melodic themes. Grdina concludes this impressive album with a beautiful, joyful tribute to the great Malian guitarist-singer-songwriter Boubacar Traoré, simply titled “Boubacar”. This time his oud spins the cyclical West-African lines through the hypnotic-rhythmic playing of Nubian-Sudanese late oud player Hamza El-Din.

(...) The tone of each instrument is dry and stark; this is a fully acoustic recording, and feels like the desert from which these traditions emerged. The sharp twang of Grdina's oud is earnest and pained, mingling perfectly with the melodic embellishments of celloist Hank Roberts. The recording feels vivid, clear and immediate without any hint of artificial enhancement, for a very effective and transparent production.

This is rich and listenable recording which works on multiple levels, providing a great density of complex and expressive melodic work, as well as a steady yet unfamiliar rhythm. It's traditional music with the precision, reserved sophistication and ambition of jazz. I could play this recording on repeat all day, and never develop any fatigue at any of these pieces or sounds. Between the two Grdina projects I have listened to, it would be difficult to pick a favorite as each is so brilliantly distinct, and each serves its function.

(...) The blending of Middle Eastern music with jazz can sometimes sound forced or undernourished. Gordon Grdina’s The Marrow proves music from different regions can be converted into singular, inventive and very enjoyable music. Audiophile fans should note Ejdeha was recorded and mixed in 24 bits/96kHz. The mixing and mastering supplies beautiful-sounding highs and lows well worth hearing.

Gordon Grdina has a compound musical identity, as both free-jazz guitarist and devoted advocate of the middle-Eastern oud, the forebearer of many western plectrum instruments (“lute” is a corruption of “el oud”). In Grdina’s practice, however, the two overlap, the improvisatory traditions and subtle pitch distinctions of Arabic and Persian music clearly feeding into the kind of jazz he favours. The Marrow’s balance is perfect: he and fellow Vancouver-based percussionist Hamin Honari are matched with New York jazz mainstays, cellist Hank Roberts and bassist Mark Helias. (...)

(...) The oud, at least the way Grdina plays it, becomes a driving force in all of the album tracks. But where his guitar playing can often be characterized by frantic and furious shards of noise, he never goes past the point of control playing oud. Every note rings so clear and fluid that it’s positively hypnotic. Even though this is most certainly an outside-the-norms jazz album it will certainly appeal to a very wide range of listeners because of this clarity in execution.

(...) Throughout, Grdina's oud lingers on the palette ("Full Circle"), despite the instrument's natural inclination for the notes to fade soon after they are played. Ejdeha, Kurdish for dragon, is a compelling work of contemporary and ancient telepathy, a sure sign that humans can talk to each other.

(...) To a professional musician, saying that you picked up a particular instrument 15 years ago is like saying you picked it up yesterday. In the grand scheme of things, Gordon Grdina has just begun to explore the possibilities of the oud in jazz-influenced Middle Eastern music. He also could be further along than we think, meaning that Ejdeha could be seen in the future as a turning point for this particular musical blend. If not, it’s still quite the musical statement.