BLUE CAMEL

Bridging the gap between the folk music of his Lebanon homeland and modern jazz, Rabih Abou-Khalil crafts on Blue Kamel a distinctive atmosphere, that fuses the two major styles of music involved with admirable seamlessness. The end result is a moody, evocative set of songs which in moment evokes smoke-filled speakeasies and the next smoke- filled hookah lounges. Exactly what the camel is so blue about, we can't tell, but there's a melancholy aura hovering over the whole thing which is established and maintained masterfully. With a backing group drawing equally on Western and Arabic musicians, the album offers a boundary-shattering cultural blend which deserves to be celebrated.