EDWARD POWELL Pilgrim featuring: Mohammed Antar 1) Bageshri Ussak (7:00) 2) Rast Jhinjhoti (5:09) 3) Blues for the Prophet (3:45) 4) Pilgrim (5:38) 5) Night Owl (4:58) 6) Lord of Eloquence (8:42) 7) Raag and Roll (5:02) 8) Sadhavati (7:41) All songs composed by Edward Powell except "Blues for the Prophet" which was composed by Mohammed Antar, Edward Powell, and Wael Al-Sayyid. edwardpowellmusic (c) SOCAN Canada 2011 Recorded with mobile recording equipment in Cairo in May 2010, additional recording and overdubbing in Ostrava, Vienna, Vancouver, and Geneva, between 2003 and 2011, Produced by Edward Powell www.edwardpowell.com Edward Powell - ragmakamtar (version #6, #7, #8), afrobass, sape-saz, fretless guitar, sitar, oud, acoustic guitar, fretless ebass Mohammed Antar - ney (tracks 1, 2, 3, 8) Wael Al-Sayyid - bendir, duff (tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) Patrick Feldner - bendir, riqq, percussion (tracks 6, 7) Tomas Reindl - tabla (track 8) Ivo Sedlacek - violin (track 7) Barbora Bartecká - dilruba (track 7) Pilgrim contains 4 new tracks recorded in Cairo (May 2010) & 4 tracks which were originally intended for previous albums. The album is a reflection of my musical pilgrimage over the past 2 decades showing strong Indian, Turkish, Arabic, North African and Blues influences, as well as a wide display of instrumentation. The album's concept changed in the process of it's creation. The original intention was a duet album with Mohammed Antar called „Sharqistan“, featuring 4 compositions from each of us, however the project faltered due to geographic difficulties. Since 1988 I have been on a musical pilgrimage in a journey of transformation from a rock guitarist to something else... however after more than 20 years I can see that nothing has changed, yet everything has changed. I met Mohammed in Cairo in 2009 on what was perhaps my final musical pilgrimage to study a foreign culture's music... Mohammed is one of the few remaining scholars utterly dedicated to preserving the Middle-eastern musical heritage of maqam. Being sightless Mohammed has an extraordinary ability to see. Edward Powell 21.12. 2011 1. Bageshri Ussak - is based on a combination of rag bageshri and makam ussak and features a beautiful ney solo by Mohammed Antar. 2. Rast Jhinjhoti - ...this time rag jhinjhoti meets makam rast. The composition culminates with modulations to rags/makams nihavent, segah, hicazkar, gunkali, neveser, maduvanti, nikriz, and bhimpalasi. 3. Blues for the Prophet - materialised spontaneously in the studio. I had asked Wael and Mohammed simply to play an improvisation without planning and the resulting music turned out surprisingly bluesly. 4. Pilgrim - is inspired by a previously recorded track called „Amjad“ which I have loved for many years. 5. Night Owl - and the next track were originally intended for my Spiritdance CD. Night Owl is based on rag abhogi in a 9 beat cycle. 6. Lord of Eloquence - is based on rag vachaspati in jhaptaal. The mood is very driving and groovy and features a frenzied riqq solo by Patrick Feldner. 7. Raag and Roll - demostrates rag jog's potential for blues feeling. It was intended as the climax of my Bluesand CD but finally didn't get on. Here it features violin from Ivo Sedlaček. 8. Sadhavati - This final track is about peace and unity. All of us creating together in harmony and joy at the end of our earthly struggles.