The Masmoudi Quartet’s brand new concert, titled Vibrations universelles, is linked to the release of the album Vibra. An appropriate title for the event, which leaves us with an impression of a gentle and benevolent purring, steeped in a warmth that is both thermometric and humanistic. To learn more about this project:
READ THE INTERVIEW WITH MOHAMMED MASMOUDI
READ THE REVIEW OF THE ALBUM VIBRA BY THE MASMOUDI QUARTETTE
The concert itself serves as a springboard for the album’s music, which I discuss in more detail in the link above. It is enough to say that all the positive impressions received during the listening of the recording are confirmed, but in an even more organic way. The presence of the musicians themselves and their camaraderie, their apparent pleasure in playing this music, and of course their spontaneous improvisations creating new expressive spaces, different from those captured by digital recording, all of this creates an absolutely charming sonic and emotional bath.
The live performance thus takes on its full meaning, weaving the link between the principle put forward by Mohammed Masmoudi (the vibrations that unite us) and the factual experience of the thing. Yesterday, a well-filled room of very diverse individuals buzzed collectively, thanks to the small musical portraits, happy marriages of three different expressive refinements: Western chamber music, jazz, and Arabic classical music.
Masmoudi, who wrote all the pieces, is a gifted melodist. He knows how to capture attention with seductive, soothing lines, even in the more lively or dance-like movements. But these melodies are never left lazily maintained in their initial state. He develops them, allowing them to take all sorts of detours, to shiver and tremble here and there, under the touch of the excellent artists surrounding him: Yannick Anctil, beautifully delicate in his piano playing, Vanessa Marcoux, a seasoned technician on the violin, but above all an effective and superbly expressive improviser, and then Rémi-Jean Leblanc, an indefatigable rhythmic and harmonic pillar on the double bass.
Memorable moments of beauty are etched in our minds. For example, this ultra delicate transition between the violin (in the ultra high notes, perfectly mastered by Marcoux) and the oud (Masmoudi who begins by placing his notes with infinite care, so as not to disrupt the handover) in Foulard au vent. Or the magnificent pastoral-impressionist colours in Space Time, between the piano, the violin, and the oud. There are plenty like that.
The kind of concert where you feel good, just being there and receiving that harmony from the brothers (and sisters) in front of us, and around us. But also to receive those sounds so charming, so delightful. Let’s acknowledge the initiative of the Bourgie Hall, which was one of the sources of this project and also commissioned two of the pieces performed in the program.
Masmoudi, of Tunisian origin, claims to admire his compatriot Anouar Brahem. It’s true that there is more than a little something of Brahem in the artistic approach of the Montrealer. In the quality of the technical oud playing as well. We wish Mohammed the same global success as his elder.
This concert has everything it needs to tour all over Quebec, Canada, and the rest of the world. He is ready to enchant many other audiences. Attention, programmers.
