improvised music in Beirut

The other night I went with some friends to hear a group called 6 at a theater in Ashrafiye. The event was billed as a "free improvised music concert." Free as in, for example, free jazz, not free entry. There were six musicians playing with their instruments -- trumpet, guitar, drums, saxophone and double bass (though the poster said "electronics" for that musician).

I said playing with because the music came from their creative manipulation of the sounds made by scraping, vibrating, scratching, plucking, rapping, and sawing on their instruments with various tools. The trumpet, by Mazen Kerbaj, was my favorite. His techniques were a bit different since it's an instrument you blow air through (must be a word for that). (The saxophone too of course, but his back was to me, so I can't describe his methods.) So, Kerbaj often put objects directly in front of the horn such as an aluminum plate, glass bowl, plastic things. Sometimes he just blew through the trumpet in a different way or through alternative pipes, creating new sounds. (Kerbaj is also a visual artist whose drawings have appeared in Middle East Report, for example see this cover.)

The effect of all this was really mesmerizing. I imagined doors creaking, trams rattling, machines, busy streets, industrial landscapes, screams, birds chirping, fog horns, cities, raspy breathing, ships and much more. That might seem very unmusical, but it's the way they made the sounds build up or ebb away and intertwine with each other and create patterns that made it so engaging.

For me, the sounds conjured up images from the films of Jan Svankmajer and the Brothers Quay, Andrei Tarkovsky and Dziga Vertov (the movie Man with a Movie Camera poster below). So, it was a really enjoyable evening.

Comments

[adiamondinsunlight]

Oh! I'm so envious! I had seen all the posters but didn't think I would be able to persuade anyone to go with me.

I remember seeing/hearing a similar type of concert years ago, in Oxford. It was composed of two trumpeters, and the things they did - fill the trumpet with water, add different "mutes" - were fascinating. What a wonderful experience you must have had - and so good to know that this kind of thing exists in Beirut!