Inana avoids the sensationalistic and touristic in favor of the sincere and investigatory, searching for a common or at least consonant elements of the vocabularies of jazz and classical Arabic music… ★★★★½”
- John Corbett, Downbeat Magazine (full article)
Inana is the most seamless meld yet of the various traditions ElSaffar represents; it offers listeners a thoroughly engaging, sensual, and enlightening encounter between the ancient and the modern, not in juxtaposition, but as seamless continuation in musical history and innovation. ★★★★½”
- Allmusic.com, (full article)
hypnotic and utterly unique”
- Areif Sless-Kitain, TimeOut Chicago
There are microtones and non-metered passages alongside Western harmonies and restless drum-set grooves. And somehow, it all just feels right. It can be solemn or frenetic, but these elegantly balanced tunes announce new possibilities in global jazz.”
-Nate Cavalieri, Rhapsody.com
ElSaffar has with this recording established himself as a compositional force to be reckoned with.”
- Thomas Stanley, Point of Departure (full article)
The band navigates ElSaffar’s still-fresh fusion of jazz and maqam with such masterful technical power and vivid lyrical imagination that you almost immediately forget to be engrossed by the novelty of the sound.”
- Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader
★★★★”
- Irish Times
More fully realized than many similar ethnic fusions, ElSaffar’s incorporation of maqam’s microtones, flexible pitches and meter-less bar lines yields a highly personalized language that reaches well beyond the confines of Western pedagogy for inspiration…Gracefully poised between two worlds, Inana builds upon ElSaffar’s previous accomplishments, establishing an impressive precedent for the creative possibilities of a new global jazz aesthetic.”
- Troy Collins, All About Jazz (full article)
The music deftly combines jazz and Middle Eastern music in a unique way, finding common ground in improvisation… ElSaffar’s studies in both jazz and ethnic music have placed him in good stead to carve out a unique place in the current improvised music. His music and musicial concept is clearly evolving, and this is a very exciting development.”
- Tim Niland, Jazz and Blues (full article)
Amir ElSaffar is uniquely poised to reconcile jazz and Arabic music without doing either harm…ElSaffar’s music [is] the result of engagement across the board, presented with clarity and eloquence.”
- The Wire
Even before you’re impressed with the innovative nature of this album you’ll be struck by the seamlessness with which ElSaffar combines two separate musical traditions while remaining true to the highest aesthetic dictates of each. These pieces are elegant, meditative, refined, and musically adventurous.”
- Wanda Waterman, The Voice Magazine (full article)
The fun the band is having is visceral: count this among the best albums to come over the transom here this year.”
- Lucid Culture, (full article)
ElSaffar has been esteemed for a new methodology towards the much-maligned world music genre….[he]is a jazz musician first, introducing his ethnicity (Iraqi) as an integrated part of his aesthetic.”
- The New York City Jazz Record