DESCRIPTION:
Zephyrus Music & De Werf Records present

Black Flower - Maqam Tizita Saba
Live at Jam'in Jette Indoor Festival, Brussels (BE)

Composer/band leader Nathan Daems created a new melodic concept for this particular piece. He made a melodic connection between Ethiopian and Arabic systems. Usually musical scales cover only one octave, so in the second octave the scale just repeats itself. Maqam Tizita Saba however is the name of a freshly invented scale covering not just one but two octaves! It starts as a sweet melancholic Ethiopian scale but then evolves into a dark and enchanting Arabic scale in the higher octave. Maqam Tizita Saba is not merely a summing up of notes (like most scales in Western music), but it already determines specific melodic movements that have to be respected (like in Arabic maqam or Indian raga music).

For the music theory geeks:
The lower octave is the Ethiopian minor Tizita scale (A-B-C-E-F) whereas the second octave uses the darker sounding Arabic scale called Maqam Saba (A-B-C-Db-E-F-G-G#). The transition between the two octaves already suggests the Maqam Saba colour and first avoids the tonic in order to raise tension. The tonic in the second octave is being established it a bit later then only to be avoided for the second time when going back down again to the lower octave.

Credits
Nathan Daems - Baritonsax
Jon Birdsong - Cornet
Simon Segers - Drums
Filip Vandebril - Bass
Wouter Haest - Keys

Live audio mix by Laurens Ingels
Post audio mix by Wout Van Putten
Video by Joey Van Kerckhove

Many thanks to Jam'in Jette

www.blackflower.be