So it happened again, a rocker foundhimself in a Jazz concert, and to tell the truth I’m starting to get into it.Anyway this time it was “Matthew Herbert Big Band” a concert organized by theBritish Council Damascus-Syria in association with Dar Al-Assad of Culture& Arts.

Matthew Herbert is a musician andproducer working predominantly in the field of electronic music. Known forignoring the boundaries and mangling the conventions traditionally associatedwith the genre, he is one of the few independently-minded artists to have madea considerable impact on both media and public while striving to be innovativeand experimental.

As a recording artist since 1996he has released music on a variety of record labels under aliases such asDoctor Rockit, Wishmountain, Radio Boy, Mr. Vertigo, Transformer under his ownname and with a Big Band. In the recent years he has played at the Montreauxand North Sea Jazz Festivals, Paris’ PompidouCentre, Tokyo’s Blue Note, Sonar and Glastonbury and supportedBjork at the Hollywood Bowl. Along with over ten albums of self-written,produced and performed music, he has contributed production work to albums byBjork and Rosin Murphy and remixed artists as varied as Moloko, R.E.M. PerryFarrell, Serge Gainsbourg, Yoko One, John Cale, The Avalanches and Cornelius.

I went with Amr, Attila and Talal(you’d say I spend all my time with Amr :-p), the concert was held in the OperaHall of the Dar Al-Assad of Culture and Arts, a very beautiful and elegantauditorium, even Attila who’s been traveling all over the world since I-don’t-know-whenfound it very impressive and was surprised to find such place in Syria (you’dthink he hasn’t been around enough??! :-p). Anyway the performance waswonderful, exquisite, breathe taking, a chief d’oeuvre, absolutely splendid.The band was very enthusiastic as well as the audience. I honestly haven’t hadthis fun for a long time, it’s an experience I am willing to live all overagain and again. The trumpet players were the funniest guys ever; it seems thatHind’s not an exception after all. :-p And one of the nice gestures MatthewHerbert did in the concert, was talking to us starting with “Assalam Aliakum”and also apologizing for the actions of UK government in Iraq, and stated that himamong others are ashamed of their government and that it doesn’t representthem, and as a proof he tore up a newspaper as a sign of his disapproval.

To visit Dar Al-Assad of Culture& Arts and Matthew Herbert websites check this links:

• www.opera-syria.org.
• www.matthewherbert.net.

Related Posts: Matthew Herbert, Jazz, Music, Live Concerts, Damascus, Syria.