New Music From Maurice El Medioni on Calabash Music

Descarga Oriental: the New York Sessions

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:29:42 -0600

Raï pioneer and grandmaster of the PianOriental Maurice El Médioni from Oran, Algeria, is a childhood hero of Khaled and featured guest on his last studio album. Latin super-drummer Roberto Rodriguez from Havana, Cuba, already played with everyone from Miami Sound machine to Lester Bowie and Chachao, via Joe Jackson and John Zorn. On invitation of PIRANHA Musik they met in New York for a Descarga Oriental, dreaming of roots that never were. An instant classic, outstanding and full of surprises.

Cafe Oran

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:29:42 -0600

Maurice El Medioni reveals the past colonial splendour of Oran - the Algerian coastal city, birthplace of rai music. The Jewish pianist, one of the foremost pioneers in Algerian pop music, has mixed a nostalgic cocktail with Cuban rhythms, French cabaret chic and Arabian mellowness. The swinging melodies rekindle the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Oran of the past when it was the melting pot for all religions and cultures. Play it again, Maurice!

Pianoriental

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:29:42 -0600

1947, Café Rumba, in Oran's rue de la gaieté. Maurice El Medioni - everybody called him "Boogie" at the time - invented "Pianoriental". He was 19. He had been playing the piano for ten years, entirely self-taught. He already taken in pre-war French variété, boogiewoogie and Latin-american rhythms. Topped off with a strongly Mediterranean component, this baroque confluence reached its height by tapping its North African roots - traditional raï and Arabo-Andalusian Nouba.