Fikry El Azzouzi

The Oriental Jazz Project presents its new album "Proche Orience". Here are four musicians of the new generation of European Jazz, who are not afraid to mix Arab-Andalusian, and world music with modern jazz, to offer us an organic and sophisticated universe, resolutely modern… Created by the belgian-moroccan pianist Marie Fikry, the oriental Jazz project offers a repertoire of original compositions that creates a dialogue between Europe and North Africa. The oriental percussion occupies a key place as a soloist, while the piano, echoes like a Oud instrument, which offer the Oriental touch to the project.

Manuel de Falla is renowned as the greatest Spanish composer of the early 20th century, melding diverse stylistic, folk or literary influences into distinctive new musical languages and forging masterworks that have become cultural emblems of his homeland. This synthesis can be found in the original 1915 version of El amor brujo, a heartfelt representation of a young Roma woman’s dramatic quest to free herself of the ghost of her lover. The mini-opera El retablo de Maese Pedro pays homage to Cervantes’ beloved Don Quixote using instrumentations and rhythms that conjure both Spain’s Golden Age and the vibrant energy of new European music in the 1920s.

El-P, aka El Producto, is one of hip-hop's most obstinate and adventurous pioneers, combining a lo-fi old-school aesthetic with a progressive rock musician's inclination to push boundaries. He has never succumbed to the demands of corporate rap, instead choosing to pursue his own decidedly non-commercial direction. In the mid-'90s, he developed a strong reputation with the groundbreaking trio Company Flow, a band whose achievements include El-P-produced LP Funcrusher Plus on Rawkus Records, a label considered by many one of the best for intelligent hip-hop. Over the group's auspicious stint together, he proved he was himself capable of intense lyricism as well as sonic production so powerful it could stand on its own.