Ton's Musical Musings: Singing with the bass

When Lebanese singer Rima Khcheich was asked to join the Yuri Honing Trio from the Netherlands for a cross-cultural collaboration called "Orient Express" in 2002, a very special and unique musical friendship was forged between her and double bass player Tony Overwater. Since that first project Khcheich and Overwater have frequently performed as a duo, mainly in the Arab world. When I met the two recently in Holland, Khcheich told me that before meeting Honing and his colleagues, she had rarely listened to jazz.

"Having been trained as a classical Arabic vocalist, I was used to singing with an orchestra playing exactly the same melody. So all those strange chords and counter melodies were really very confusing at first."

When asked if the move from jazz to Arabic was a similar effort, Tony replied: "Many jazz musicians think they can easily play something 'Arabic', but usually it's a rather poor substitute for the real thing. What makes it really difficult, is that within a single piece you sometimes have to shift between no less than four maqams (keys).

When we started Orient Express, we had to choose simple pieces in just one maqam and without quarter tones or complicated rhythms. It took us years to master the various maqams, but don't underestimate what Rima had to learn, because singing to harmony is just as complicated for her."

Khcheich interrupted: "In an Arabic orchestra, the bass just plays the rhythm. When I started to perform with Tony, I found it terribly difficult to listen to the bass, because he plays different melodic lines."

Tony: "When we perform in an Arab country, people often comment that we play two different musics at the same time, just because in my arrangements I follow a harmonic structure and not just the melody."

Rima smiles and says: "Once you're used to it, there is no greater pleasure than singing with the bass!" Rima and Tony are planning to release a duo album in the near future, but here you can already hear a sample of their collaboration, taken from Rima's latest release Falak.

Mawwal Walaw by Rima Khcheich