Asha Parkinson Quartet with guests Sura and Nahi Chehaitli
JdP Music Building, St Hilda’s College Oxford
Tuesday 27 May 2025

Asha Parkinson : Saxophones
Alexander McNamee : Piano
Alex Taylor : Drums
Mark McQuillan : Double Bass
Sura : Voice
Nahi Chehaitli : Oud

Asha Parkinson is a young saxophonist, composer, arranger and band leader whose been a semi finalist three times in the BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year competition. Her music draws on and blurs the boundaries of Jazz, Arabic, Turkish , Indian, contemporary classical and folk traditions.

She founded Kalpadruma, a twelve to fourteen piece collective, to “explore (these) connections” in 2017 when she must have still have been a teenager.

Ian Mann first came across her at the 2019 London Jazz Festival. He has continued to document her emergence ving 4 star reviews to both ‘Onwards’, her first self released disc with Kalpadruma: and also to her second release with the same band, ‘Possession’ (2024) on Ubuntu Music
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/asha-parkinsons-kalpadruma-onwards
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/asha-parkinson-possession

Ian’s reviews have a full biography of Asha’s career up to that point.

Asha also has composed for classical ensembles including the high profile Ligeti Quartet. Mainly based in London, she told me she’s on the verge of completing a Masters in composition at Oxford. During this time she was commissioned to write a piece for Ensemble Isis, the Oxford University group specialising in performing contemporary classical music.

Tonight’s line -up featured what could be called Asha Parkinson’s London-Oxford quartet as pianist
Alexander McNamee is a second year undergraduate at St Hilda’s college while bassist Mark McQuillan who has his own band Testaments, and drummer Alex Taylor, who is a member of Kalpadruma, are London based.

This was a concert in which Arabic music and jazz were intertwined, and for which the quartet were joined by two guests, both specialists in Arabic music. Lebanese vocalist Sura (not to be confused with a South Korean singer with the same name)  is now London based, and the other guest was oud player Nahi Chehaitli.

The first number, a traditional Levantine song, was good illustration of the group’s ability to bring together the two traditions. It opened with an oud solo underpinned by bass, drums and piano with some short stabs of soprano sax from Asha Parkinson. Sura’s vocal then took over. She sang purely in an Arabic style. Her voice was beautiful and expressive and unforced, and I consider myself to have been lucky to hear her in the intimate space of the JdP as potentially she’s a star in the making destined to perform at much bigger venues.

We’d been provided with translations for all the Arabic songs so could see this first song was about a woman (presumably) giving vent to her frustration at her treatment by the ‘Hal Asmar Ellon/Beautiful Tanned Person’ of the song’s title. The group got the music to swing, and there were jazz solo’s from both Parkinson who finessed the quarter tones central to Arabic music on her soprano, and from talented Oxford undergraduate Alexander McNamee on piano. The final line of the song was “Oh heart, I am tired, where has your love thrown me to?!”, and the music ended with an appropriately tired sounding phrase.

The second song, and more frustration with a lover. ‘Dak Khilken’ translates as ‘I’m Fed Up’, and is by the iconic and much garlanded Lebanese singer, Fairuz. Again Sura’s vocal was expressive and there was a sinuous solo from Parkinson.

Further examples of the Sura’s expressive vocals in combination with music appropriate to the lyrics occurred through the set. A song about love ‘Al Khub’ had wistful music by Parkinson with the oud and piano combining rather beautifully and the group creating some eerie effects.
‘Wahdon’ made famous by Fairuz is a song that’s both a tribute to and mourning for three young men “martyred” in the Lebanon, the music for which was fittingly sad with the oud creating shimmering textures.

The highlight of this coming together of Arabic traditions and Jazz was ‘Gaza’ with words by Paris based Syrian writer Miram Al-Masri and music by Parkinson. In introducing it Asha Parkinson acknowledged it was a controversial choice but she said it was “A tribute to common humanity”. For this the highly impressive Sura adopted a very effective recitative style, part declaiming, part chanting, part singing Al- Masri’s heart rending text. To give a flavour of the power of the words here are some extracts:

“a child who, instead of growing up and growing old is bloodstained and borne in a coffin..”

“even the rats in my house are hungry and thirsty, I am dying, dying,
and no one cares….”

Parkinson’s music for this started with a perfectly paced, elegant solo from oud player Nahi Chehaitli and then Alex Taylor’s drums opened up for the rest of the group to join. There was the sound of keening from Parkinson’s soprano sax, an incisive piano moment from McNamee and the number ended with Mark McQuillan making his unaccompanied double bass sound Arabic as he brought this very moving number to a poignant conclusion.

Parkinson also included a number of instrumental numbers in the set, almost all of which were played by her quartet with her guests sitting out. The recorded version of two of these numbers feature vocals ,  ‘Snowdrift’, recorded as ‘Snowdrift on the Sand’, and ‘Distant Devotion’ , but tonight there was no voice involved in either.

Both Parkinson and pianist Alexander McNamee made significant contributions to the material from the Arabic world, but with them sharing most of the soloing duties they were even more prominent in these numbers. I particularly enjoyed Parkinson’s lyrical drifting soprano sax solo in her arrangement of a traditional Turkish number ‘Drama Koprusu’ which she said was about a Robin Hood character.

McNamee was a revelation to me. I had come across him at least three times previously playing in a regular series of student lunch-time concerts where his repertoire was usually Bach or another composer from the classical canon, one of his own compositions and perhaps a jazz standard, the most recent example being ‘April in Paris’. I had no idea he was so into contemporary jazz and so good at playing it with precision and verve.

The instrumentals also shone a light on the ensemble playing of the quartet which was excellent considering this was only the first or second time this particular line-up had played together.

There were seven instrumental numbers in all, five of Parkinson’s own compositions, the traditional Turkish tune she’d arranged and a number by flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia.

Of these ‘Maelstrom’ was one that stood out due to it being turbulent and edgy. It opened with sax and piano heading into uneasy territory and ominous sounding drums. The music with Parkinson in the lead became stormier and stormier but then reached a calmer place (the eye of the maelstrom perhaps) that featured a piano solo. The piano then developed a storm of it’s own before Parkinson’s edgy sax came back in, and a contribution from the drums led to an ambiguous ending that left the tune unresolved.

‘Shams’ which |Parkinson told us was about “Feeling time in different ways” was the one instrumental for which the quartet was joined by oud player Nahi Chehaitli. It was notable for how particularly well his oud playing was integrated into what was a bustling instrumental.

The number written by flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia, ‘Zyryab’, was his tribute to an oud player. The quartet played it with the oud player sitting out. It was the crowd pleaser of the night, featuring Parkinson, on alto for this, playing with great control and precision and another fine solo from McNamee. Taylor in the engine room kept it all moving as the joyful tribute built to a crescendo. He was then given space to unleash an extended drum solo that brought the number to a triumphant conclusion.

The finale, an upbeat Arabic song about love of the homeland led by Sura with audience participation got faster and faster and went down well. With some of the musicians having to get back to London there wasn’t time for an encore to add to what had been a thought provoking and enjoyable set. It is a pity there was only a small crowd to witness it.

The night was further confirmation of Parkinson’s fast developing skills as player, composer, arranger and band leader, and of her bold mission to blur the boundaries between musical traditions in this instance Jazz and Arabic music. It is a testament to her skills that this was done in a way that felt organic. While her choices might not satisfy some jazz purists, she is a committed young player forging her own path and jazz is very much part of this. The concert also illustrated her belief in making music to promote peace and mutual understanding, to which we say “Amen, indeed”, and wish her “more power to your elbow”.

Thank you to Asha for having a brief word afterwards and for organising my ticket.

For more information on Asha Parkinson please visit; http://www.ashaparkinsonmusic.co.uk

Set List;

Hal Asmar Ellon (trad. Levantine song)
Dak Khilken (Fairuz)
Maelstrom (Asha Parkinson)
Drama Koprusu (trad. Turkish arranged Asha Parkinson)
Snowdrift (Asha Parkinson)
Shams(Asha Parkinson)
Gaza (Music Asha Parkinson, Words Maram Al - Masri)
Alright Then! (Asha Parkinson)
Al Khub (music Asha Parkinson, words Miram Al-Masri)
Wahdon (Fairuz)
Zyryab (Paco de Lucia)
Distant Devotion (Asha Parkinson)
Baktob Esmek (Joseph Azar)

COLIN MAY

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