🎵 Quarter-tone Guitarist - Jan Wouter Oostenrijk.
About Traveling East.. the new album
Since the 90's Jan Wouter has created remarkable crossover music inspired by Middle-Eastern and North-
African culture, that he easily merges with his Western roots. Gathered under the tags Sharqi, Blues,
Maghreb, Jazz, his innovatve guitar playing takes you on a magical journey.
Traveling East is his 6th solo album, and this tme released on Mountain records. The sparkling sounding
western acoustc guitar is put in the spotlight here, armed with oriental microtonal favours triggered by a
modifed quarter tone fretboard.
In the solo pieces Jan Wouter plays Taqsim, based on classical Arabic maqam performance. As captured in a
compelling story the melody travels through a dizzying labyrinth, acceleratng from silent starry nights
towards wild chases in the desert. Touched by great players such as Munir Bachir and Simon Shaheen Ud
playing is creatvely twisted back to the guitar. A reunion with its original ancestor.
The duo tracks sound full and rich, well produced electronically recorded multple layers and soundscapes.
In his own compositons and traditonals we hear connecton with jazz and blues in the improvised phrases
and chord structures. Last but not least Jan Wouter is accompanied by master percussionist Nasser
Salameh from Jordan, who brought a great contributon to the album with very tastull swinging poly-
rhythmic grooves and colours.
About Jan Wouter
Jan Wouter Oostenrijk (JWO) is a successful internatonal artst known for navigatng the crosscurrents
between jazz, blues, rock, North African and Middle Eastern music. Originally trained as a western guitar
player in the traditons of jazz and classical music he recently obtained a masters degree in Middle Eastern
improvisaton where he did research on melodic maqam behaviour related to the quarter tone guitar.
He has toured with his band in Europe, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Sudan. He completed his
professional jazz guitar studies at the Conservatory in Amsterdam (1994) and has been running his own
guitar school there for more than 25 years. He received the “Gouden Notenkraker” award for his
contributon to the Dutch live music with Moroccan formaton Raï-land and a Radioindy “Golden Artst”
award in the USA for his album Maghreb Jazz guitar. His course Desert Blues is on Truefre educators USA.
Releases:
– Open up your eyes (2000) – Gnawa in Your Soul(2015) f. Voice Arab fnalist Farid Ghannam
– Meet the rhythms of Rai (2003) – We are Connected (2017) on Mountain records
– Maghreb Jazz Guitar (2006) – Desert Blues guitar (2018) video course on Truefre Educators
– Sharqi Blues (2013) f. Karim Ziad – Traveling East (2023) on Mountain records
Video clip: https://youtu.be/9BA_4oywK80
Tourdates: https://www.maghrebjazz.nl/tour-dates/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janwouteroostenrijk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JWO.Sharqiblues.Maghrebjazz
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/janwouteroostenrijk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janwouteroostenrijk
Spotfy: https://bit.ly/2v3rZqO
iTunes: https://apple.co/2wvneqx
More info and contact:
Jan Wouter Oostenrijk (JWO MaghrebJazz & SharqiBlues)
Ofcial site and shop www.jwo.nu
Mobile +31 6 275 22 715
Email info@maghrebjazz.nl
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