Two Rivers invokes the Tigris and the Euphrates, whose floods were forces of creation and destruction in the world’s first cities. It recalls Iraq’s history, glorious and tragic, and mourns the blood and ink streams that coursed through Baghdad after it was ransacked in 1258, ending its golden age. Two Rivers resounds with the joy inside the pain of the Iraqi heart. It evokes soldiers and tanks pummeling over the world’s most ancient and holy lands—lawlessness in the land of Hammurabi. Two Rivers flows from the two streams of blood—Iraqi and American—that run through my body. It is the struggle for existence, the illusion of otherness, and finding balance: between separateness and unity, unity and diversity, self and other, borders and openness, chaos and order, harmony and dissonance, equal and non-tempered scales, “jazz” and maqam. It is the music of this land…all in one stream.”
~ From the liner notes of Two Rivers (2007)
The Two Rivers Ensemble is a group of highly-skilled, creative musicians including Nasheet Waits, one of the most dynamic drummers in jazz who is best known as a mainstay in Jason Moran’s Bandwagon; bassist Carlo DeRosa, whose CD Brain Dance was released earlier this year to considerable acclaim; Tareq Abboushi on buzuq (long-necked lute) whose CD, Mumtastic, contains his own blend of jazz and Arabic forms; multi-instrumentalist and virtuoso Zafer Tawil, who is one of the most in-demand Arab musician in New York; and the newest member of the ensemble, saxophonist Ole Mathisen, who replaced Rudresh Mahanthappa in the band when the latter’s burgeoning career made it difficult for him to commit his time to the project. Mathisen has been active on the New York scene for almost 20 years in a wide assortment of contexts including Persian, Indian and Latin music. Most importantly, he is one of few musicians to have mastered microtonal playing on the saxophone.
After five years of extensive performing and touring, the Two Rivers Ensemble has developed an instinctive ease with ElSaffar’s highly complex music, enabling the band to play with a creativity that transcends pure technical challenge. Using maqam to transform the jazz idiom, the music still speaks the language of swing, improvisation and group interaction.