REVIVAL

3.5 stars. While I'm not "all in" on the music presented here, Al Basim's life is a pretty cool story. Immigrating to the USA in 1978 from Iraq, Al who was a guitar player, managed to hook up with some local session players in Denver and create and release "Revival". He would end up moving to France in the 90's, and he would return to his musical roots with "Songs From Iraq" released around 2006 or so. That one is much more acoustic and arabic sounding than this his debut from 30 years earlier.

So we get a five piece here, although the sax player is only on the closer. There are no keyboards here as this is mostly a flute and guitar led album along with drums and bass filling out the sound. No vocals save for some wordless melodies to open and close this album. The music is mostly jazz, psychedelic and arabic in nature. I'm not sure if the title "Revival" is meant for his home country of Iraq, as we get a picture in the liner notes of a mosque I think, from his homeland.

The opener "History Of The World" is head and shoulders above the other four tracks in my opinion. The next two songs "Poitiers" and "Souvenir" are fairly lightweight with little in the way of percussion, in fact none on "Souvenir". "One Camel In Alaska" is a funny title and a return to the arabic sounds. A pretty good song but the flute does get annoying by this point on the album with that high pitched fluttering. And speaking of annoying, the closer "Open Space" is pretty much a free jazz improv. And while I'm not big on free jazz, this one is actually a nice change of pace.

I was expecting more I must admit. The album cover with Al's picture and the word "Revival" seems iconic, but I don't feel like the music could be described that way at all.