Flavour of the Year

continued..

‘From the beginning I thought, “Oh god, this is Big Brother, basically”,' Adams says. ‘Especially as we had a film crew there, so each time there was some tension there was a camera to catch it. But I tend to take that kind of role in groups anyway, so I'm used to that kind of thing. People were pretty tolerant of each other, considering.'

With 15 musicians from seven countries involved, some of the challenges to communication were of a more basic type.

Saqr says, ‘The first week, I couldn't understand one word the Moroccans and Tunisians were saying – since the dialects between east and west of the Arab world are completely different, although it's the same root language. I got used to the music in the Maghreban dialect after having lived with the guys for a month during the UK residency and the Morocco experience. Proudly, I can tell you that now I can understand their jokes and instead of a confused look on my face, you get a loud giggle!'

However, one conflict that was notably absent was the political and religious problems that have marred relations between many of the musicians' home countries. ‘Obviously there are a few problems in the Middle East, and even a little between the Arabic countries, say Lebanon and Syria , but that's not been an issue with this project,' McCormack says. ‘It's been totally musical. Everyone's been concentrating on the details of the music and it hasn't felt political at all, really.'

By all accounts, the first concert, at the Heart of the World Festival in Cambridge , was a massive success. Adams remembers it with pride: ‘From having nothing at the beginning of the week, to suddenly having two hours' worth of music, it was evident why everyone had been put up for it by their local British Council. There were no shrinking violets; everyone came over really wanting to perform.

‘The audience absolutely loved it. It was like a little mini-festival on stage, because there'd be beatboxing one minute, then the next would be Ruba doing her beautiful, Joan Baez kind of stuff, then there's this very wry rap and funk rhythm going on. They're often my favourite gigs, the first ones, because there's the excitement that you could go desperately wrong, and there's something quite magical about when it stops being a rehearsal piece and goes out to the public and becomes a real thing.'

Subsequent concerts presented new challenges and opportunities, from one at The Sage Gateshead, where the now-bonded group had to open up to working with additional musicians, to an acoustic gig at St Barnabas Chapel in Soho, which required rearrangement of pieces for unplugged performance. ‘That gig was very special to me because I have always dreamt of playing music at a chapel, a cathedral or a house of God. Being a Muslim, it is not quite an open opportunity to me to do so in my part of the world,' says Saqr.

In June the group journeyed to Casablanca , playing to around 10,000 people at Le Boulevard Festival. ‘It was very much an outdoor festival, “we have to hit them one after the other” sort of thing, very different to playing a small venue in Cambridge ,' notes McCormack. After a month and a half's break, the tour resumed on 20 July in Jordan . ‘I think Jordan was possibly our best audience in that they were reacting to the music as it went along. ‘They didn't wait until the end to show their appreciation. We were led to believe that it's one of the more conservative Arab states and they were dancing in the aisles.'

The last Music Matbakh concert took place on 16 August in Tunisia . Although the project was filmed by media agency Yeast for a documentary which the British Council will show in the participating countries, where now for the musicians? McCormack for one has hopes that the project will continue in some form: ‘I would like it to tour to some other places, other than to the Middle East , because it's more like we're taking it home to those countries. Maybe Europe or the States – it would be good for some new audiences to hear it. But maybe an album would be the quickest and easiest way to do that. I'd be up for it, anyway!'

Whatever happens, both McCormack and Saqr highly rate the lasting effect of Music Matbakh upon them as musicians, and especially how it exposed them to unfamiliar genres and traditions. ‘The ney player [Moslem Rahhal], the way he improvises is very different to how I would improvise as a jazz musician,' says McCormack. ‘The simplest way of putting it is that he'll have a theme, and what he improvises is completely on that theme, whereas a jazz musician would tend to improvise on the chord changes from a song. So that was really interesting and I'd not seen that before.' He hopes to collaborate with Rahhal again in the future.

‘Personally, I never understood rap musically before Music Matbakh; now I relate to it and understand the feeling behind it,' says Saqr. She carried her Matbakh experiences over into her own solo work. ‘When I first left to Music Matbakh I was in the middle of recording my first album. When I came back to my country following phase one of the project, I made substantial changes on the general feel of my album and did some arrangement changes.' Does Music Matbakh offer a model of collaboration that could be repeated elsewhere? ‘I don't see why not,' says McCormack, ‘but I think the reason that this has worked so well is the musicians themselves, and their openness, their ability to adapt. As long as you can find open-minded musicians – and I'm sure there are all over the world – then I don't see why it shouldn't work in other disciplines and backgrounds.'

Saqr says, ‘I was once sitting with Justin and we were reflecting on what has been achieved, and I remember him saying that the project was a “lifetime within a lifetime”. I have learnt so much about myself and my abilities as a musician and I have made personal discoveries about my potential, which was life-transforming.'
Adams himself adds a purely pragmatic final seasoning to this unique ‘kitchen' session: ‘The experience of working with that many musicians who you don't know against deadlines, has taught me that it's tough, you've got to work really, really hard. Another time I've learned to try to schedule a week's rest after it', he laughs. ‘It took a lot out of me. But I loved doing it.'