Ayman Fanous - guitar, bouzouki, Jason Kao Hwang - violin, viola
REVIEWS
this is one of the finest duet recordings I’ve heard in recent memory.
- Robert Iannapollo, Cadence Magazine, July/August, 2014 Read Full Review
The duo of Ayman Fanous and Jason Kao Hwang doesn't shy away from anything. It's a partnership built on mutual respect, conviction, and a yearning for truth in sound. - Dan Bilawsky, All About Jazz, February 27, 2014 Read Full Review
Here’s an exciting duo disc that bridges music of the Far East, Mid-East Mediterranean and free jazz in an exciting way.
- George W. Harris, Jazz Weekly, February 27, 2014 Read Full Article
... the two musicians were extremely tight and attuned to each other, interacting and communicating to an extent that is rare even among experienced improvisers. - Matt Cole, DooBeeDooBeeDoo New York, February 15, 20014 Read Full Article
This is not world music. It isn't jazz either. This is music with ambition. Ambitions of beauty, artistic ambitions, for new forms of sounds, new ways to express things, full of emotional depth, with emotions that are too complex to be canvassed in old forms, too elusive to be captured in patterns, too deep to be expressed in shallow tunes. - Stef, Free Jazz Blog, February 5, 2014 Read Full Review
There is great freedom, technique harnessed to the ends of making a statement musically, and the sort of magic that results when all of that works, comes together. - Grego Appelgate Edwards, gapplegateguitar.blogspot.com, February 18, 2014 Read Full Review
The duo release—Zilzal—further defines the evolution of two master musician/composers pursing the most imaginative alternatives to the status quo. - Karl Ackerman, All About Jazz, January 21 2014 Read Full Review
- Perfect Sound Forever, 2013 Writers’ Poll, Our Favorite Things, February 2014
…it is serious contemporary music composed and performed by two eerily amazing musicians, a unique improvisational language that spans many streams of musical culture, aesthetics, and compositional philosophy. - Grady Harp, amazon.com, December 13, 2013 Read Full Review
this duo creates the kind of achingly simple and beautiful playing that isn't casual listening but is deep, solid listening
- Midwest Record, December 7, 2013 Read Full Article
Two voices working as one harmonic train of thought are rare in the improvisational music we refer to as jazz, to venture into the cultural extremes as exhibited within Zilzal and make the music accessible to a broad based audience is simply amazing.
- Brent Black, Critical Jazz, December 1, 2013 Read Full Article
Do not, I am warning you, leave your brain at the mall while essaying this outré but riveting release.
- Mark S. Tucker, Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange, 2013 Read Full Review
The outstanding American violist and violinist Jason Kao Hwang and Egyptian guitarist - and outstanding performer buzuki- Ayman Fanous are two of the most exalted representatives of multiculturalism that characterizes the musical advanced the new millennium. (google translation) - Brevario, El Intruso, October 29, 2013 Read Full Article
Zilzal is the recorded debut of the duo of guitarist Ayman Fanous and violinist Jason Hwang. The name of both the album and title track is the Arabic word for earthquake. And this music represents the collision of several musical worlds. Forged in New York’s downtown music scene of the late 1990’s, this duo has developed a unique improvisational language that spans many streams of musical culture, aesthetics, and compositional philosophy. In its inter-cultural egalitarianism, it could only have been made in America.
Fanous came to free improvisation by way of flamenco and classical guitar. Unlike more academic manifestations of improvised music, these traditions have always been full of energy and emotional force. By yoking the expansive techniques of these demanding guitaristic approaches to a contemporary aesthetic, Fanous has developed a unique voice. It is full of both fiery virtuosity and harmolodic openness and complexity. To this combustible mix, Fanous adds a number of extended techniques to create a rich tapestry of textures and colors. While the guitar is Fanous’ primary instrument, he also reaches back into his Egyptian ancestry in improvisations on the bouzouki, an instrument which intimates the musical spirit of cultures from Central and South Asia to the middle east, Balkans, and North Africa.
Jason Kao Hwang’s violin and viola explores the music of life within the resonance of each moment, which streams incessantly from future to past. His improvisations journey upon an inward, evolutionary road that rises through and transcends his cultural, historical and emotional inheritance to inspire outward vibrations of greater giving. By cultivating an individual voice, empathic listening and faith in the expressivity of all sounds, Hwang believes the harvest of human potential and good is infinite. Influences upon his playing include the Chinese erhu as well as many vocalists and jazz musicians.
These improvisations were beautifully recorded by Sal Mormando and mastered by Grammy-winner Silas Brown. Although they were performed with no prior musical planning, Fanous and Hwang have developed such an attunement to each other’s gestures, moods, and trajectories that sometimes makes the music sound through-composed. Figure and ground give way to each other seamlessly, and at times meld into one and the same. The pieces span many emotional and aesthetic spaces. These range from the lyrical and jazzy, to the fiery, the melancholic and contemplative, and to rhythmic abandon. Throughout the recording, Fanous and Hwang employ the full palettes available to them, resulting in a music that is at once orchestral, cinematic, spontaneous, and at all times, visceral. Flavors of the Middle and Far East make entrances and exits throughout the session, but arise spontaneously and never dominate or clash with the open feeling of the session.
In short, this is contemporary instrumental music of great beauty, depth, energy, and sensitivity. It represents a snapshot of the complexities, richness, anxieties, exuberances, and inter-cultural accommodations of 21st century American life.
BIOGRAPHIES
Ayman Fanous has been described as a “master musician/composer pursuing the most imaginative alternatives to the status quo… who has honed distinctive and unconventional methods on both guitar and bouzouki, managing to synergize classical, flamenco, and free jazz techniques” (Karl Ackerman, allaboutjazz.com). His signature sound has been described as a “stylistic amalgam of Derek Bailey and Paco de Lucia” (Jay Collins, Signal to Noise). In addition to the guitar, Fanous also reaches back into his Egyptian ancestry in improvisations on the bouzouki. This is informed by many years of absorbing influences from the musical traditions of the Arab world, Turkey, India, North Africa, Persia, and the Balkans. More recently, he has developed extended electric guitar techniques using a slide. He has led duos, trios, and quartets with numerous world-renowned jazz and improvisational musicians, including Frances-Marie Uitti, Bern Nix, Tomas Ulrich, Jason Hwang, William Parker, Ned Rothenberg, Mark Feldman, Joe McPhee, Denman Maroney, Mat Maneri, Lori Freedman, Greg Howard, Daniel Levin, Kinan Azmeh, Chris Speed, Andrea Parkins, Ikue Mori, Susan Alcorn, and Tatsuya Nakatani. His duo CD with Tomas Ulrich (Konnex, 2007), was described as "the benchmark for all cello-guitar duo recordings" (Signal to Noise). His duo CD with violinist Jason Hwang (Innova, 2013) was described by Robert Iannopollo (in Cadence Magazine) as "one of the finest duet recordings I've heard in recent memory." A duo CD with cellist Frances-Marie Uitti will be released on Mode Records in 2018.
The music of Jason Kao Hwang (composer/violin/viola) explores the vibrations and language of his history. His compositions are often narrative landscapes through which sonic beings embark upon extemporaneous, transformational journeys. He will release Blood, performed by Burning Bridge, his octet of Chinese and Western instruments, on October 22, 2018. Downbeat Magazine named his quintet recording Sing House, one of the Best CDs of 2017. His 2015 CD Voice (Innova), which features vocalists Deanna Relyea and Tom Buckner performing East Village poetry with different ensembles, received critical acclaim. Zilzal, his duets with Ayman Fanous (guitar/bouzouki) was named one of the Top CDs of 2014 by All About Jazz/ Italy. In 2013 and 2012 the El Intruso Jazz Critics Poll voted him #1 for Violin. The 2012 Downbeat Critics’ Poll voted Mr. Hwang as “Rising Star for Violin.” The first Burning Bridge was named one of the top CDs of 2012 by Jazziz and the Jazz Times. In 2011 he released the critically acclaimed Symphony of Souls (Mulatta), performed by his improvising string orchestra, Spontaneous River. In 2010, the New York Jazz Record selected Commitment, The Complete Recordings, 1981-1983 (NoBusiness), from a collective quartet that was Mr. Hwang’s first band, as one the “2010 Reissued Recordings of the Year.” His quartet EDGE released three critically acclaimed CDS, EDGE (2006, Asian Improv), Stories Before Within (2008, Innova), and Crossroads Unseen (2011, Euonymus). His chamber opera The Floating Box, A Story in Chinatown was named one of the “Top Ten Opera Recordings of 2005” by Opera News. As composer, Mr. Hwang has received support from Chamber Music America, US Artists International, the NEA, Rockefeller Foundation and others. As violinist, he has worked with Karl Berger, Anthony Braxton, William Parker, Butch Morris, Ivo Perlman, Oliver Lake, Reggie Workman, Pauline Oliveros, Tomeka Reid, Patrick Brennan, and many others.