Mustafa Stefan Dill (fretless guitar, oud, sarod) is well known in the area for his guitar, sarod, and oud work, leading a variety of his own ensembles as well as playing in mJane, Out of Context, Zevk Ensemble, and others. He has peformed solo concerts at numerous improvised music, jazz, and guitar festivals, including FMP's Total Music Meeting, Wirral Guitar Festival, Paderborn Guitar Festival, Zuid Nederlands Jazz Festival, and others.
Jefferson Voorhees (drum set, tabla, naal, tar)resides in Albuquerque and is one of the regions most versatile and sought after percussionists. His resume includes such projects as the Tom Guralnick Trio, Bayou Seco, Stove, and Out of Context, among many others. His time spent in India studying music and percussion (as well as his performances with Iraqi oudist Rahim Alhaj) adds some particularly unique qualifcations for the project.
Influences
Tagore, White Stripes, K. Sridhar, Ali Akbar Khan, Amjad Ali Khan, A.R. Rahman, Zakir Hussain, Dhrupad, Led Zeppelin, Asha Bhosle, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Harry Partch, Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, bhangra, Bill Dixon, Peter Broetzmann, Hendrix
Sounds Like
Bill Frisell or Hendrix and Ornette Coleman guesting with the White Stripes in Calcutta.
This is not your typical world-music-samples-with-new-age-synth-pads-and-a-drum-program.
While sometimes serene, it is by no means placid. The degree of dialogue and improvisational interplay, the unpredictable journeys the Duo travels to, draws the listener in, inviting one to fully engage, rather than just passively listen.
SELECTED PREVIOUS MSD REVIEWS:
Loud, burning, skronky stuff (although, they do calm down at times and indulge in some more restrained, quiet passages). It's all very beautiful if you're into this sort of thing, definitely for fans of Mahavishnu John McLaughlin and Nels Cline!! Cool. (for Stefan Dill Trio, 2002)
-Aquarius Records, March 2002
"...packed with Hendrix inspired blues licks and string bends, coupled with John McLaughlin out there raw energy bursting into beautifully sustained feedback parries with bass and drums... To coin a well known phrase, 'it's music, but not as we know it Jim.'" (for Stefan Dill Trio, 2002) (JM Web)
- Julian Derry, JMWeb
"Dill's playing is very quick, fluent, and highly accomplished, at times generating some beautifully rich and powerful textures inspired by the high drama of flamenco...stimulating". Geoff Cox, Classical Guitar (England), June 1998
"Very much in the flamenco vein ...while displaying a sometimes delicate and sometimes turbulent style. Yet his emotional playing has all the elements of what creative improvised music is all about...unquestionably an exceptional performance." Cadence, April 1998 (Vol 24 No. 4)
"... Dill's evocative solo nylon stringpieces are an ear-stretching hybrid of Bailey's stark pointillism and traditional flamenco gestures....full of delicate dynamic shading and poignant silences. Soulful and innovative." Joe Gore, Guitar Player, May 1998
" The work of guitarist Stefan Dill is as daring as it is ambitious and satisfying. ...These are tensions which propel the music - beyond hearing , which is what it ultimately aspires to- is all to do with the delivering of not just sound, but of a pure experience." Loretta Summers, World Beat (England), no 6 (April/May 1998)
"Eine mitreißende Tour durch eine andere Welt von Klängen und Inspirationen. Flamenco? Ja - aber einmal ganz anders!" Peter Maier, Gitarre Aktuell, I/98 (No. 60)
" Solo guitar music that lies somewhere in the triangle between flamenco, ECM style improvisatory jazz, and aleatory/12 tone composition....very original, and totally unique". Guillermo Juan Christie, Flamenco Connection
" ...haunting music in a language that floats on the threshold of the unconscious, congratulations!" Roberto Limon, Director, Centro hispanoamericano de Guitarra, August 1996
"The completeness and extreme originality of guitarist Stefan Dill's art is more than impressive....He has drawn from all manner of sources: the percussive power of flamenco has a role to play, balancing the expressivity of free jazz and the structural concerns of post - Schoenberg straight music....Crucially, his music is no potpourri: his tastes may be eclectic but he has his own, very distinctive, voice. " Steve Lake, FMP Total Music Meeting 1994 programme notes
Burn your panpipe samples and scrub the dishes with your ambient synth pads: this is not your auntie's world music band.
Get down, get loud, get transported by some sophisticated, groove-oriented energetic jamrock improv/jazz with a south Asian and Middle Eastern twist.
Sama Duo retains an improvisational focus, applying a deep core of both cutting-edge and ancient improvising methods within the musical traditions of India and the Middle East. The Duo reaches into the inner aspects of form and method from the established traditions, adds their previous experience as post-modern improvisors to the process and wraps it all with a rhythmically- driven, wide-ranging rock/funk ethos.
The group takes as its name a nuanced Arabic term that describes the spectrum of relationships between intense listening, sprituality, and music-making itself.
The Duo was chosen in 2006 to provide the music score for the independent film "Birth of a Pillow" by director Sharmy Pandey, from Kolkata, India. The film is a 47 minute feature with no dialogue, requiring a continuous music score that would amplify and emotionally detail the story to a very high degree.
The Duo's current instrumentation is fretless electric guitar and drum set, though they still use the sarod/tabla combination that marked their earlier phase, as well as the underutlilized oud/gome combination.
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