CD version. Madar is the only recording made together by the Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek, the Tunisian oud player Anouar Brahem and the Pakistani tabla player Ustad Shaukat Hussain. Recorded in Oslo in August 1992 and released by ECM in 1994, it brings traditional melodies, Brahem's modal writing and North Indian rhythm into the same room. The pieces are long and unhurried, and most of them grow out of improvisation.

Garbarek had been struck by Barzakh, Brahem's first ECM album, and a trial session showed that the two understood each other at once. "Manfred proposed that we might invite Shaukat for a session with Anouar," Garbarek has recalled of producer Manfred Eicher. Brahem remembers him "saying 'Let's try it and see what happens.'" Hussain had already played on Garbarek's Ragas and Sagas with the singer Ustad Fateh Ali Khan. The trio met at Rainbow Studio with Jan Erik Kongshaug as engineer. Garbarek plays tenor and soprano saxophones, and Hussain joins only on some tracks, which leaves room for duets of saxophone and oud.

The disc opens with Sull Lull, a traditional melody arranged by Garbarek and stretched to almost seventeen minutes, with oud and tabla drawing it far from its source. The title piece, written by Brahem and Garbarek together, is a patient exchange of more than eleven minutes. Jaw is Hussain's own composition and his feature, eight minutes in which the tabla leads. Brahem adds three pieces of his own, Sebika, Bahia and the short Ramy, and the programme ends with a brief anonymous Epilogue.

Reviewers heard a real three-way conversation in which neither tradition is diluted. In JazzTimes Josef Woodard wrote that "Norway and The Middle East sound like neighbors with a common cause." The Wire called it one of Garbarek's most interesting albums, adding that "seldom do producer and artist share the same vision so closely." In Die Weltwoche in 1994, Peter Rüedi described an almost enlightened dialogue between continents, resting on mutual respect.

This is the CD edition, catalogue number ECM 1515, of the album first released in 1994.