This music invokes dreams, then lifts your heart to seek the source of such visions. Listening to Darvish is like encountering long, lost, dear friends returned from journeys to exotic countries, changed... and changing you as you listen to their tales. Every song is a postcard from the Beloved, equally flavored by modern jazz rhythms, Middle Eastern melodies, and percussion. Upbeat urban jazz suddenly shifts and you are whirled like a dervish, your heart spinning. Darvish's music asks your spirit questions, and then it answers with the sounds of searching, discovery, delight, and ultimately peace. Robert Hunt
For over five years, Peter Maund, Moses Sedler and Victor Spiegel have been getting together to make the most remarkable music: a blending of jazz, classical, Middle Eastern and Indian music. Strange modes, odd rhythms, fiery melodies unite into world fusion chamber music.
The performance of the ensemble Darvish on its self-titled CD is food for musical gastronomists. The blend of jazzy cadences and elements of Middle Eastern melody is so subtle that it is easy to mistake this production for easy listening. Clearly there is much more to it. Besides, the credentials of the three musicians who make up Darvish are so impressive that this dilettante reviewer is almost too intimidated to write down any comments on these creations, let alone pass judgment.
Most of the compositions are from the hand (and mind) of Victor Spiegel. This prodigious musical omnivore has written countless scores for films, documentaries, museum audio tours and interactive media. But he is saving the best for collections like Darvish and -- I suppose -- for his solo albums. Apart from being a piano virtuoso, Spiegel's exposure to music from the Balkans, Far East, the Indian subcontinent and Turkey is applied in a very creative manner to what, at initial encounter, strikes the listener as urban jazz with a touch of "Je ne sais quoi." But after becoming more closely acquainted the "strange modes, odd rhythms, fiery melodies unite into a world fusion of chamber music," as the CD cover very aptly describes it.
Apart from Spiegel, cellist Moses Sedler has written two tracks. "Dawn before Time" and "Point Landing" give him ample opportunity to show off his technical prowess as a performer and composer of highly original pieces. Sedler's musical versatility is further underscored by his earlier cooperation with a variety of world music giants. He has worked with the Nubian Hamza El Din, probably the greatest Oud (Arabian lute) player alive, jazz saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders, whose music also betrays spiritual influences from African, Sufi and Brahmanic traditions, and Cuba's musical peripathetic Omar Sosa. Sedler has established his own ethnic music credentials by five years of intensive study with two Bengali musicians, sarod master Ali Akbar Khan and tabla player Swapan Chaudury.
The composer duo is accompanied by percussionist Peter Maund, who also studied with Swapan Chaudury at California's Ali Akbar College for Music. Maund embodies the intellectual musician, or musical intellectual. Apart from being a superbly trained instrumentalist, this ethnomusicologist is working towards a doctorate in North Indian Music at Berkeley.
This brings me to the trio's common denominator, already betrayed by the group's name and CD title. Darvish is a Turkish word used to designate practitioners of Islamic spiritualism, alternatively also know as "sufis." In a more restricted sense it refers to adherents of one of the many established mystical orders that can be found throughout the Islamic world, but which have a specifically strong presence in Turkey and the Indian subcontinent. In fact, in both regions Muslim spirituality happens to have a strong musical tradition as well, exemplified by the so-called "whirling darvishes" of Konya in the days of the Ottoman Empire, and the rich Ghazal and Qawwali heritage of India and Pakistan, which is still very much alive today. Spiegel takes the lead in bringing this to life in the music of Darvish, for example on the track titled "Hayy Gilani," dedicated to the founding father of one of Islam's most prominent sufi orders.
Just as scholars of Islam have always struggled to get a handle on sufism, failing to find a satisfactory definition, any attempt to squeeze the music of Darvish into existing categories will be futile. For as Spiegel explains, the whole purpose of Muslim mysticism is to escape from the ego-matrix (the so-called "nafs" or "lower soul") through unique individual experience. The three darvishes on this CD are to be commended for presenting music's universality in a way that is firmly rooted in the great established musical traditions of East and West. At the same time, they give it a highly original interpretation, but avoid the trap of using "the exotic" for cheap effects. When can we expect their next séance?
- Rambles written by Carool Kersten published 23 November 2002
Absolutely mesmerizing!, October 8, 2002 Reviewer: ldyal from Winter Garden, FL I was stunned! Someone in Hollywood should make a movie based on this as the soundtrack! Just a flowing collage of landscape scenes, no actors, just life accompanied by the music... like the pictures it created in my head as I listened
You immediately notice the intricate, richly hued designs of the carpets you are walking on. Don't stare too long at them. They're hypnotic. Fragrances swirl around you made up of exotic spices, incense and perfumes. Pulsing rhythms of conversation, movement and calls to prayer mingle with the bartering and hawking of wares. You sit down at a table in a courtyard with what you thought was coffee, next to an ancient fountain. You sip and taste sweet, subtle spices, along with a startling biting flavor. Nothing is quite what you expect. Looking into the cup, you hear distant memories of jazz, but see yourself walking next to a camel in the deepening shadows of a desert village. As though it has its own gravity, you are inexplicably drawn towards the oasis...
Darvish music- An exotic blend of Middle Eastern, Jazz, Indian and Classical musics. World fusion chamber music.
MOSES SEDLER - Cellist, composer, he has received wide acclaim for his fluid melodic sense and inventive rhythmic approach to the cello. His unique ability to improvise spontaneous live compositions has earned him a place among the most creative cellists in the country. Moses has appeared with Pharaoh Sanders, Hamza El Din, Paul McCandles, Omar Sosa, Kai Ekhardt, and with many others. He has composed for many Bay Area dance companies including Alonzo King's Lines Contemporary Ballet. When Moses moved to the Bay Area, he immersed himself in the study of North Indian classical music with Maestro Ali Akbar Khan and Tabla virtuoso Swapan Chaudury. Before moving to the Bay Area, Moses attended Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle where he studied classical composition and jazz improvisation.
PETER MAUND - A native of San Francisco, Peter Maund studied percussion at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music; tabla with Swapan Chauduri at the Ali Akbar College of Music; and music, folklore, and ethnomusicology at the University of California, Berkeley (A.B., M.A.). As a Ph.D. candidate at Berkeley, he specialized in the music of North India. Mr. Maund has presented lectures, workshops, and classes in the United States, Canada and Scotland. He has served on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley; the Amherst Early Music Institute; and the San Francisco Early Music Society. Other workshop sponsors include the American Recorder Society (chapters in California and Florida), Vancouver Early Music, and Balnain House (Inverness and Glasgow).
VICTOR SPIEGEL - Began studying piano repertoire at the age of 5, and began his concert career at age 7. His interest in all forms of music led him to study and practice the music of Africa, India, Indonesia, Tibet, Turkey, Rumania, and many of the world's cultures. He has scored over 100 audio tours for museums throughout the United States. Besides playing with Darvish, Victor performs and records solo piano albums, composes for films, documentaries, radio, TV, CD games, and interactive media. He teaches privately, and has been Visiting Professor, an instructor at community colleges, and private schools.
For more information and bookings E-mail: darvish@vspiegel.com www.vspiegel.com (510) 849-4913