Yazz Ahmed - A Paradise In The Hold - 2 x Vinyl LPs

2025

A Paradise in the Hold is trumpeter/composer Yazz Ahmed's fourth album as a leader. Ten years in the works, she realizes what she began on a trip to Bahrain in 2014, resulting in 2015's commissioned suite "Alhaan Al Siduri." She studied the work and travel songs, hymns, and chants of Bahrain's pearl divers, the characters in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the creative power of Arab women. Ahmed uses elements from the earlier composition in these ten atmospherically intense tracks that crisscross modern and electric jazz with Eastern folk sounds and even dubby club music. She realized the project with an invited studio band and guest vocalists including Natacha Atlas, Randolph Matthews, Alba Nacinovich, and Birgitte Beraha, marking the first time Ahmed has worked with singers.

The droning intro of "She Stands on the Shore" emerges with airy electronics and flugelhorn alongside Samy Bishai's violin before Atlas begins singing from Gilgamesh about the goddess Siduri, who becomes this project's Muse. The rhythm section -- vibes, drums, electric piano, percussion, brooding electric guitar, bass, and vibraphone -- breathes together as George Crowley's bass clarinet follows a glorious flugelhorn solo with modal exploration in intimate post-bop fusion. The ten-minute instrumental title cut is easily the most elaborate composition here. It relates the seafaring adventures of the pearl divers as they return home with precious cargo. Above darkly tinged atmospherics, Ahmed's ensemble weaves electric, 21st century jazz with slipstream Arabic folk. The haunting,

"Tears of the Mermaid" uses lyrics inspired by Rumi to relate the tale of a pearl diver drawn to the bottom of the sea by a mermaid; it's sung in duet by Beraha and Matthews. Ahmed's flugelhorn floats and hovers with the singers. The wonderfully mysterious "Her Light" features the bandleader's own lyrics -- sung alternately by Atlas and Beraha in different cadences. It's inspired by centuries of Arabic women's choirs and opens with a driving Middle Eastern dance before breaking first into spectral electric post-bop before keys, drums, and percussion evoke junglism before Ahmed takes a labyrinthine solo. "Into the Night" is a folk-inspired modal jazz tune complete with vocal ululations, conversation, and handclaps as Ahmed and percussionist Corrine Silvester create a hypnotic, circular flow. "Though My Eyes Go to Sleep, My Heart Does Not Forget You" has lead vocals by Nacinovich. Her protagonist is a pearl diver's beloved anxiously awaiting his return. The music stitches Eastern harmony to syncopated bass and drum, percussion, loops, and handclaps. Bass clarinet joins two flugelhorns in framing the singer's voice in the ensuing maelstrom of tension. Closer "Waiting for the Dawn" grows directly out of "She Stands on the Shore," though Ahmed balances the nearly droning dubwise rhythm to an Eastern modality in elegant post-bop. Ahmed's catalog thus far has been flawless, and as enchanting as it is forward-thinking musically and philosophically. That said, A Paradise in the Hold is a masterpiece, a work of tremendous sensitivity and creative insight brought to life by a musical visionary capable of advancing and remaking 21st century jazz.

Thom Jurek ~ AllMusicGuide