Over his quarter-century career, JD Allen has explored many corners of the world of jazz,  from the mainstream to the avant-garde, and blues to electronica. With his new release, we find Allen in Tangier & Rabat, Morocco collaborating with local and like-minded musicians, who together have produced an astounding new hybrid of tenor-led free jazz and gnawa, the North African musical genre that  features the guembri, the region's unique 3-stringed lute.

Many artists have travelled this path - Matisse, William S. Burroughs, Alan Ginsberg, Brian Jones and Jim Jarmusch included - but the city, one of the world's great historical crossroads and cultural melting pots, has also attracted its share of jazz icons: Josephine Baker, Ornette Coleman, Dizzy Gillespie, Archie Shepp and Randy Weston among them, with the latter providing inspiration for Allen's adventurousness, as each shares common roots in Detroit, USA. Allen can now stand proud in the illustrious company of these predecessors, for this collection (named for the Rabat studio in which it was recorded), brings forth as sweet, engaging and authentic a musical marriage between genres as you're ever likely to hear. ​
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As correctly noted in Willard Jenkins' excellent album release notes "Throughout this release, one hears that JD Allen chose to go deep...engaging in a true sense of spiritual connection" with music that "brings to mind the musical hypnosis often experienced at the annual Gnawa Festival in the lovely seaside Moroccan town of Essaouira every year." Having shared this experience, we confirm the accuracy of Jenkins' statement.

Allen's combo is stacked with international heritage and experience, and comprises Bolivian Leonardo Montana (piano), French-based Cuban Ruy Adrian Lopez-Nussa (drums) and Moroccans Hamza Souissi (electric bass) and Yazid El Alaoui (guembri and vocals). Together, they have captured the essence of gnawa - it's simultaneous gentleness, chaos, devotional and trance-inducing qualities. The result is timeless music that seems to trace ancient heritage paths across time and space to American blues and Gnawa, and colonial, North African roots.