The Astounding Eyes of Rita is a quartet album by the Tunisian oud player and composer Anouar Brahem, eight of his pieces for oud, bass clarinet, electric bass and Arabic percussion. It is dedicated to the memory of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), whose poetry gives the album its title. The pairing of bass clarinet and oud recalls Brahem's Thimar trio, but the music often sits closer to the more traditional sound of Barzakh or Conte de l'incroyable amour.
The group was assembled by Brahem with producer Manfred Eicher. Klaus Gesing, bass clarinettist in Norma Winstone's trio, and the Swedish bassist Björn Meyer, from Nik Bärtsch's Ronin, both work with sources beyond jazz. The Lebanese percussionist Khaled Yassine plays darbouka and bendir. Eicher arranged rehearsals in Udine, and Brahem has said the band became a real group only during the sessions. The album was recorded there in October 2008 at Artesuono Recording Studio, with Stefano Amerio as engineer. Brahem wrote the pieces on the oud, while the earlier Le Pas du chat noir had been sketched on piano.
The low registers of bass clarinet and bass leave room for Brahem's understated melodies, while Yassine's hand drums keep a steady, dance-like pulse. In the title track oud and darbouka hold a long conversation, and the piece has an open, almost cinematic quality. Stopover at Djibouti adds the colour of Brahem's harmonics, with Gesing's bass clarinet weaving light ornaments around the line. The Lover of Beirut and For No Apparent Reason frame the programme, and in both Meyer's bass adds a touch of groove. Dance with Waves is the most playful piece, the instruments flirting with each other over Meyer's bass line.
"Albums as perfect as this appear rarely," wrote Phil Johnson in The Independent, who heard the eight originals "trace a continuous arabesque". Songlines gave it five stars and an Editor's Choice in its January/February 2010 issue, where Bill Badley called the mood introspective rather than sombre. In All About Jazz, John Kelman singled out Gesing as a strong foil for the leader, matching his slightest bends and glissandi.
This is the CD edition, ECM 2075, first released on 25 September 2009, with a 16-page booklet that includes a poem by Darwish.
