028: Yazz Ahmed, A Paradise in the Hold

Boundary-transcending jazz with an oceanic spirit.

I’ve been listening to a lot of ‘50s jazz recently but today I’m going to swing¹ into a different direction and recommend the gorgeous new album from British-Bahraini trumpeter and composer Yazz Ahmed. I’ve been following her music since 2019, when I interviewed her for Maggot Brain #2 on the heels of the release of Polyhymnia, a sort-of concept album of stunning psychedelic jazz animated by the courage and creativity of women throughout space and time, named after the Greek muse of poetry and dance.

I’m just realizing that she may be my first repeat interview; I recently talked to her again as part of my review of her new album (A Paradise in the Hold, out today!) for the February issue of Uncut. You can read that review online, but you’ll have to dig the print edition for the accompanying short interview. The songs on this wonderful album are largely informed by two traditional forms: joyful Bahraini wedding poems and sorrowful pearl diver work songs.² Is it gauche to quote myself? I don’t care!

Ahmed tends to work her subjects into the very form of her compositions. On Paradise…, this process is subtle but refined. The pearl divers sing fidjeri when they’re out at sea, songs about missing loved ones back home. But they also incorporate the actions of a mariner into the music itself, the sounds of pulling the sails and heaving the rope. Ahmed took all these little characteristics and chopped them up, processing them into something unrecognizable and new, which then inspired her to write basslines and melodies. The original field recordings can’t be heard on the album, but their spirit is integral to its very existence.

A Paradise in the Hold is very easy to listen to on repeat. Ahmed’s compositions, which incorporate electronic experimentation alongside the traditional instruments of jazz, hum with deliberation; they are subtly textured, imaginative, incredibly satisfying. On what I think is probably the album’s best song (“Though My Eyes Go To Sleep My Heart Does Not Forget You”) I was reminded first of an Arabic-infused take on Alice Coltrane’s ashram recordings, then later of Ron Carter’s hypnotic grooves on Ptah, the El Daoud. This album also marks her first time writing for voice; the lyrics of “Though My Eyes” are an adaptation of a pearl divers’ standard, written by Ahmed in English and then translated to Arabic.

Another thing I love is the brilliant use of bass clarinet, an instrument I’m always excited to hear. When I asked her about it, she cited Bennie Maupin and mentioned being inspired by electric Miles, like Live-Evil and Bitches Brew. (Speaking of Bennie Maupin, The Jewel in the Lotus is one of the best ‘70s jazz albums of all time. The highest recommendation from me!)

I’ll leave you with a sci-fi-tinged image that was cut from the interview, in which I learned that she asked her friend Jason Singh, a vocal sculptor and beatboxer, to create sea creature sounds for her. Something you could imagine being produced by mollusks – her terrific description. If you listen carefully, you can hear these strange sounds on “To the Lonely Sea.”

On a completely unrelated note, last year I was asked to contribute to the fifth volume of Lyrics as Poetry, a print-only journal spotlighting the work of songwriters. That issue’s theme is Dreams. I chose to write about the lyrics of “Pretty Eyes,” one of my favorite Silver Jews songs, a gut-wrenching all-timer. Should you be interested, grab a copy here!

Now Reading: Glass, Irony & God by Anne Carson
Just Watched: Party Down, 1x9: “James Rolf High School Twentieth Reunion”³

1. 😏

2. The pearl divers no longer exist in terms of a workforce but they remain enshrined in the memory of the uniquely Bahraini genre known as fidjeri, or sea music. If you want to know more about fidjeri, dig this Folkways compilation.

3. This is simultaneously one of the funniest and most heartrendingly depressing episodes of television ever made. Just absolutely brutal.