Wed 7/24 @ 7:30PM
The Cleveland Museum of Art’s new Ohio City Stages series of outdoor world music parties, taking place throughout July on the street in front of the independently owned and operated Transformer Station, has already visited Romania, Honduras, and Mali.
This week, it brings Morocco to Cleveland with a performance by Aziz Sahmaoui and his band University of Gnawa.
The band’s name refers to gnawa, a form of distinctively trance-like music that blends the African and Arabic influences that came together at the crossroads of northern Africa. (Some may remember the 1971 album Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka, which glamorized the idea of traveling to Morocco among hippies; it drew on Gnawa sounds),
Sahmaoui, a Marrakesh native who plays traditional North African instruments gimbri and ngoni, as well as a host of other instruments, and sings, is no primitive or outsider musician. A resident of Paris for several decades, he was a member of jazz pianist Joe Zawinul’s Zawinul Syndicate for six years. And he’s got a Facebook page. (It’s in French).
So he’s got the knowledge and sophistication, in addition to the grounding in his native culture, to be a translator of the music for American audiences.
The outdoor block party-style event is free. The music will be followed at 9:30 by the outdoor screening of film clips on the wall of the Transformer Station.
https://www.facebook.com/azizsahmaoui
http://www.clevelandart.org/events/special-events/ohio-city-stages