The combination of a Jewish Algerian pianist and a Cuban percussionist may seem like one of the more fanciful world music fusions dreamt up by record company marketeers in recent years. Despite this, these two musicians actually have far more in common than you might expect. Both are open-minded artists who have experienced the pain of exile, but soaked up the music of their changing surroundings, and both, surprisingly enough, have long been steeped in both Latin and Jewish music.
Maurice el M茅dioni was born in 1928 in the Mediterranean port of Oran, the fabled home of ra茂 music. At the age of nine, he taught himself piano and soon began to incorporate whatever he heard around him into a uniquely florid and fluid style, since dubbed 鈥榩iano oriental鈥. This meant combining Latin styles, jazz and boogie woogie learnt from visiting American GIs during World War Two with influences absorbed from the local ra茂 musicians. However, the end of Algerian civil war in 1962 meant the expulsion of the local Jewish population, and Maurice鈥檚 family were forced into exile in Marseille, where he has lived ever since, becoming known internationally in recent years for albums such as Caf茅 Oran (1996) and Pianoriental (1982/2000).
Roberto Juan Rodrigues grew up in Havana, but when he was nine, his family became part of the Cuban Diaspora, leaving for Miami. It was here that his encounters with the local Jewish Diaspora began while playing percussion in his father鈥檚 band at Yiddish theatre and bar mitzvahs. His later move to New York furthered the connection, not only through his enthusiasm for the klezmer renaissance of the 1980s but also his association with Marc Ribot and John Zorn. In fact, he鈥檚 recorded three other albums with Jewish musicians 鈥 El Danzon de Moises (2002), Baila! Gitano Baila! (2004) and Oy Vey! Vey! (2006). As he drolly observes, 鈥淚鈥檓 not Jewish, but I鈥檓 getting closer.鈥
It鈥檚 not so surprising, then, that their joint album Descarga Oriental (2006) which was in fact initiated by the German world music label Piranha,is such a swinging triumph.
Jon Lusk听
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