Andalusia Man

For a while I was thinking of what my next post here would be. Today while checking facebook I found what I wanted to share with you.

Beshar Al Azzawi.

I knew Beshar for more than two decades now. We were neighbors, graduated the same high school, and then graduated the same college, the same exact department (we even failed the same classes, and I am one year his senior!). Beshar and I shared and still share many things, some of them he doesn't even know about. The love of art (mine visual, his audioable), sensitivity, perfectionism, type of women and creativity.

Beshar is a musician and a singer. He makes his own music and remakes others. What makes him a first amongst equals is that no matter how different his work is, it always reflects Beshar. He uses music to recreate his life, his ups and downs, angels and demons, and his longings. Personally, I like the music he makes inspired by his demons better than the ones by his angels. Maybe because I know him that well.

Beshar can give you the golden age of Iraqi music, gypsy style rythm, silky vocals and pure entertainment, sometimes in five languages, all in one song. Within four minutes of listening to his work you'd reach that utopian level of relaxation, the taste of your mom's cooking, the first puffs of your favorite cigar, your best memory, .....

As I have mentioned in many places (YouTube, FaceBook, .....) Beshar's work is the Lagrange point between the eastern and the western music worlds. A golden bridge between the classic Arabic songs and the immortal gypsy guitar, between the past and the future of this type of beautifully meshed music.

If you have an open mind toward the original and the different, then try to listen to his remake of "Rah wa Misha". It blew me away. I consider it (he did all the visual and audio himself) as the coolest thing I have witnessed since Sting's "Desert Rose". A dark horse in the stable of Ofra Haza, Shab Khalid and Shakira.

You can check the song at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoBrrXfEQh0

..and his website at:

http://www.albeshar.com/

I wish you all the joy his music brings me. And I pray to all the Gods of luck and inspiration to smile at him.

Beshar if you ever read this, know that you always, ALWAYS have this one listener waiting for your next work.

One Word

Today I received some bad news by email, so I decided to change the mood by posting something positive, something that makes me feel good and hopefully would do the same to my friends. I thought a good movie wouldn't be a fitting solution, so I chose a poem, performed as a song.

It's called "una palabra"

I don't speak Spanish, and all what I know is that Una Palabra means "one word"

Something is magical about this song, starting from the title, to the performance and ending with its writer Carlos Varela. (Google his name, you won't regret it!)

Even the video I caught on YouTube is part of this magic. Simple, deep, true, real and dreamy beautiful.

The first time I heard it, I felt like it held me by the shoulders and shook me, to the core.

I shared it with my friends through the wide world to pass the jolt of joy it gave me praying it would deliver them the same.

If you want to be engulfed by its magic, then click on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP_GfVOShgM

Enjoy.