Ara Dinkjian’s groundbreaking work with Night Ark is a landmark of global jazz, but these two CDs, recorded live in Jerusalem during the annual oud festival, focus on him as an instrumentalist. The first is basically a tribute to the music of Ottoman times, played by a quintet of ace soloists: in addition to Dinkjian, there is the Greek lyra player Sokratis Sinopoulos, the Turkish kanunist Tamer Pinarbasi, the Arab bass player Rimon Haddad, and the Israeli percussionist Zohar Fresco. The presence of musicians from countries that in history have been at each other’s throat clearly illustrates the relevance of the album’s title, as does the choice of compositions: all are classic songs from the eastern side of the Mediterranean sea, Egypt, Greece and Turkey – with a focus on composers of Greek and Armenian origins. There are maybe some engineering problems in the live recording and the musicians sound like they were not that familiar with each other: while facing such a complex repertoire they play flawlessy, but without the necessary abandon to make this music truly alive and vibrant, at least for this listener.

on the second disc, Dinkjian revisits some of the melodies that are listened to daily by millions of people, having been sung by an impressive array of popular singers like Eleftheria Arvanitaki and Sezen Aksu; even now ‘The Invisible Lover’ will be playing on Turkish TV somewhere, extolling the virtues of drinking raki. Zohar Fresco improvises a lively rhythmic support using a wider array of sounds, and some keyboards are tastefully played by Adi Rennert. Dinkjian shines as an instrumentalist, interpreting his own themes and then using them as improvisation vehicles, often augmenting the textures with wordless vocals. The album slowly builds in intensity, retaining the feeling of a live performance – at times pensive, at times joyous celebration – carrying the listener away in the unique musical world of this Armenian in America.