NEW ALBUMS
YAZZ AHMED
A Paradise In The Hold NIGHT TIME STORIES
Kaleidoscopic jazz imbued with Bahraini folklore, poetry and an oceanic spirit. By Ana Gavrilovska
Bold as brass: Yazz Ahmed
SEB PETERS
8/10
TRUMPETER, flugelhornist and composer Yazz Ahmed has created her most exquisite sonic world yet on A Paradise In The Hold, 10 tracks of magnetic, boundary-transcending jazz that intricately blend influences from her British-Bahraini heritage. Drawn to storytelling, Ahmed writes compositions that tend to have a narrative flow. On this record, her approach is shaped by two traditional forms: joyful Bahraini wedding poems and the sorrowful work songs of the pearl divers. It’s a natural pairing of her interests, incorporating the cultural expressions of weddings with the pure folklore of the pearl divers, who no longer exist in terms of a workforce but remain enshrined in the memory of the uniquely Bahraini genre known as fidjeri, or sea music.