Omri Mor & Karim Ziad & Mehdi Nassouli

Engaging trio explores the connection between gnawa and jazz

Playing until the audience forgets what’s being played and simply undergoes the music, dancing in a trance-like state: isn’t that secretly the dream of every musician? The question answers itself.

Israelian pianist Omri Mor and Algerian drummer Karim Ziad have played together before, on Mor’s first album among other projects. Somewhere along the line they discovered they shared a love for intoxicating music. Music that erases thought, music that is pure experience.

They added young Moroccan guembri player Mehdi Nassouli, tried and tested in the gnawa tradition, to their lineup, instantly renewing their music digging for deeper roots. Pioneers like Ornette Coleman had already found out how powerful the combination of jazz and gnawa can be. And how beautiful it is when barriers are removed. That’s what this trio does. First and foremost they do it with their music. On top of that, being Algerian, Israeli, and Moroccan, they offer danceable, undebatable evidence that borders and prejudice, once reconciled or dispelled, no longer exist.

Formation

Omri Mor - piano
Mehdi Nassouli – guembri, ghaita, vocals
Karim Ziad - percussion, drums