Global Hit

Jon Balke

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Today’s Global Hit is about as multi-cultural as you can get. The composer of the music is Norwegian. The singer is from Morocco. Other musicians are from Algeria, Iran, Germany, and the United States. And yet, the leader of the project says he had his doubts about an album that smacked of “world music fusion.” The World’s Ken Bader has the story.

Norwegian composer and pianist Jon Balke finds that “world music fusion” label a real turn-off.

He says most projects in that category borrow, superficially, from different musical styles…with no real interaction among them.

When Balke contacted Moroccan singer Amina Alaoui about making this album, he learned she shared his scepticism.

So they figured…let’s go for it.

‎Their starting point was the poetry and music of Al-Andalus, or medieval Moorish Spain.

Add a dash of early Baroque music and a touch of jazz, and the result is the CD, called “Siwan.”

That means “balance” or “equilibrium”…like a triangle, says Balke. And, he says, this project was triangular…in the sense that it was full of threes.

“I mean, you had the Baroque music, you had the Andalusia music, and you had the jazz-improvised music. You had the Arabic-Muslim world, you had the European-Catholic world, you had the Jewish traditions. You had the African-Arabic continent, you had the European continent, you had the American continent.”

The American continent is represented by Memphis-born trumpeter Jon Hassell. This track, “Ya Safwati,” sets the words of an 11th-century Andalusia poet to music.

Another song is called “Ayshyin Raiqin.” The text comes from a 12th century Arabic poem. The words, in English, are read here by Jon Balke.

“A serene evening. We spend it drinking wine. The sun, going down, lays its cheek against the earth, to rest. The breeze lifts the coattails of the hills. The skin of the sky is as smooth as the pelt of the river. How lucky we are to find this spot for our sojourn with doves cooing for our greater delight. Birds sing, branches sigh, and darkness drinks up the red wine of sunset.”

Even the most recent poem set to music on “Siwan” dates back five centuries. Most are much older. Yet, Jon Balke finds the legacy of al-Andalus relevant to today’s world.

The fact that Muslims and Jews and Christians could co-exist the way that they did in this culture created a very strong, constructive atmosphere in science, in politics, and in culture, definitely. So I guess that we have something to learn from this period.”

Here, Amina Alaoui sings the words of a 10th-century Muslim mystic. “Creatures are slaves to their inclinations, and the truth of the Truth, when one realizes it, is Holiness.”

For The World, I’m Ken Bader.