After the surprises came more surprises.
Dimitris Mahlis was tearin' it up on the oud, a Middle Eastern lute. We got the passion, the dignity, the romance, even a touch of space f*ckin. We got the technique, recognizing that today's black-metal guitarists with their fast one-string "tremolo picking" are borrowing from oud players a thousand years dead.
We got new stuff too, since Mahlis (mock-LEES), though he employed old methods and an old instrument you've heard buzzing its un-Western scales behind every exotic movie bazaar scene, was performing his own intricate compositions with a seasoned band that was up to the challenge.
Then we heard a . . . sound. It was high, warbling, elongated and otherworldly, as if an ostrich were being tortured in the vast cistern beneath the Hagia Sophia mosque. Everyone was looking around until we realized that the bell of big Dan Rosenboom's cornet was raised to the microphone, that Mahlis was laughing with oud on lap, and that Rosenboom was launching edgewise into one of his many energetic, sympathetic and creative solos. He also locked in when Mahlis required tight unisons and harmonies, which was always. Rosenboom likes this kind of music, see, even used to have a band that advertised similar influences.
Tonight's bassist, scrape-skulled Jerry Watts, was a member of another ensemble with Mahlis called Babaghanoush, which might explain the ease with which he negotiated the material on his comically tiny U-Bass -- it sounded like a Gibson electric and sacrificed nothing. Good news that the drummer was Zappa's choice (and everyone's) Chris Wabich, whose wrists flicked as lank as his hair; he showed the infuriating gift of unconscious groove in the midst of great complexity, even switching to tambourine for a minute just to offer a quick dynamic shift. These four can't have been rehearsing for years, but it seemed that way.
Although Mahlis's fingers traversed the neck with diamond-cutting precision, he never acted like a chopster; it was in service to the tunes. And whatever lessons he learned from the old school, some of the chords he used would never be found in traditional music; John McLaughlin, maybe. Yes, Machlis did strap on a Telecaster for a few songs to showcase his electric-guitar abilities, which were formidable.
A riveting show on a Tuesday, kinda out of nowhere. Those are special.
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PHOTO BY FUZZY BURQ.