Blue Maqams — Anouar Brahem (2018)
The oud as memory, inquiry, and quiet defiance
By Rafi Mercer
Blue Maqams sounds as if it has travelled a very long way to reach you — not in distance, but in time. The first notes feel older than the room you’re sitting in, yet they arrive with a clarity that belongs entirely to the present. This is music that doesn’t announce itself as mystical, but becomes so through patience.
Anouar Brahem’s oud sits at the centre of the record like a question rather than a statement. It never rushes to resolve itself. Instead, it traces lines — careful, deliberate, searching — as if testing how much space a note can hold before it collapses. You hear the grain of the wood, the slight resistance of string against finger, the human effort inside every sound. Nothing is hidden. Nothing is overplayed.
What makes Blue Maqams extraordinary is not just the meeting of worlds — oud, jazz, maqam — but the restraint with which that meeting happens. Dave Holland’s bass doesn’t anchor so much as hover, offering gravity without weight. Jack DeJohnette plays like someone who understands that rhythm can be implied rather than stated. Pianist Django Bates moves gently at the edges, adding colour without crowding the frame. Everyone here knows when not to play.
There is a sense, listening closely, that this album belongs to a lineage of listening rather than performance. The maqam system — modal, circular, emotionally precise — carries with it centuries of accumulated feeling. But Brahem doesn’t present this as heritage. He treats it as living material. These melodies are not relics; they are working tools for thought.
The mysticism you feel is not theatrical. It comes from repetition, from attention, from allowing a phrase to return slightly altered, as if changed by the act of being heard. This is music that teaches you how to listen by refusing to meet you halfway. You must slow down. You must let go of expectation. In return, it opens a deeper register of awareness.
What’s striking is how contemporary Blue Maqams feels despite its ancient tonal language. In a world of compressed sound and constant stimulation, this album insists on duration. It trusts that meaning will emerge if you stay with it. That trust feels quietly radical.
This is not background music. It is companion music — something you live alongside for an hour, then carry with you afterwards. When the final notes fade, the silence feels different. Charged. Earned.
Blue Maqams reminds us that some instruments don’t belong to any one era. They move through time, gathering stories, waiting for listeners who are willing to meet them properly.
Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters.
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