WOMAD

Smadj

From Tunisia

2001 BiographyJean-Pierre Smadja, aka Smadj, has a penchant and a passion for two things… music and technology. Raised by Tunisian parents in the suburbs of Paris, Smadj professed an early obsession with jazz and Arabic music together with a precocious mastery of the guitar. He survived for about a decade playing guitar and oud, the Arabic lute, in and around the Parisian jazz-club circuit and built an impressive reputation as a studio sound engineer before wiring his brain into the latest music technology and embarking on his very own personal ambition to marry Arabic music, jazz, and digitalism with style and feeling. The first hint the world caught of this master plan was Smadj’s debut album on the Melt 2000 label, ‘Equilibriste’. Adventurous, complex, intricate and passionate the album created a small but instantly devoted fan club. The follow-up, ‘New Deal’ which was released earlier this year spread the word even further, put Smadj at the forefront of a new breed of electronic Arabic music producers. Feet, heart and brain will all feel stretched an exercised after a séance with Smadj. Biography by Andy Morgan, June 20012001 Biography:Extraordinary fusion of global influences and Parisian jazz funk from the Tunisia-born Jean-Pierre Smadja. Smadj expresses an extraordinary breadth of influences, from oriental to Brazilian music, to jazz, funk and soul.