Ibrahim Maalouf and The Trumpets of Michel -Ange
O2 Shepherds Bush Empire
Monday 7 April 2025

Ibrahim Maalouf: Lead Trumpet
Mihai Privan: Saxophone
François Delporte: Electric guitar
Mohamed Derouich: Acoustic Guitar
Julien Tekeyan: Drums
Hafsatou Saindou: Dancer
Yanis Belaïd: Trumpet
Yvan Djaouti: Trumpet
Nizar Ali: Trumpet
Manel Girard: Trumpet
Diwan Fortecoëf: Trumpet
Kourosh Kanani: Guitar guest

‘The Trumpets of Michel -Ange’ (T.O.M.A) 2024 is French-Lebanese trumpeter , composer and musical polymath Ibrahim Maalouf’s eighteenth studio album. But it is more than an album and a tour. It’s an initiative, a brand (T.O.M.A), an educational project and a business start-up (Maalouf joked with the audience that being Lebanese being a businessman is in his DNA).

Maalouf plays a trumpet invented by his father that has a fourth valve which enables him to play quarter tones and therefore to mix Middle Eastern scales and maqaam with Western music scales and genres.

Until very recently as far as I know Maalouf was the only person who had and played a quarter-tone trompe. His initiative is wanting to make quarter-tone trumpets widely accessible, and by doing so realise a dream of his father.

To this end he’s gone into partnership with French instrument makers to produce quarter tone trumpets . Anyone who buys one of these T.O.M.A branded projects also gets an offer of a free place at the academy Maalouf has set up to teach how to play the T.O.M.A and an opportunity play on stage with Maalouf and his professional T.OM.A players, and this did happened at tonight’s concert.
( See : https://www.ibrahimmaalouf.com/en/t-o-m-a-trompette/t-o-m-a-trompette/)

Why name the initiative ‘Trumpets of Michel-Ange’ ? It’s a reference to Michael Angelo painting the Sistine Chapel which is how Maalouf thought of his musician father when he was inventing his trumpet with a fourth valve, when having arrived in France as a refugee he lived in a church.

Maalouf was well established as the most popular jazz and ‘world music’ instrumentalist in France when his international profile was increased by coming to the attention of Quincy Jones in 2017. He’s now been twice nominated for Grammys. The first for Best Global Music Album 2023 for the oratorio ‘Queen of Sheba’ for which he wrote the music that set lyrics written in Yoruba by Benin’s superstar singer and UNICEF goodwill ambassador Angélique Kidjo. They performed it together with Maalouf’s core group of musicians and with different classical orchestras, and I count myself fortunate to have seen two performances in 2018.

The second nomination came the following year in the Best Global Music Performance category for “Todo Colores” a track on Maalouf’s album ‘Capacity for Love’, his seventeenth studio album. This mixed Middle Eastern cadences and jazz with different strands of club culture and DJ programming, electronica and hip hop. My review for The Jazz Mann of the London and Nice Jazz Festival concerts to promote ‘Capacity to Love’ album is at :
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/ibrahim-maalouf-barbican-hall-london-11-july-2022-and-scene-massena-nice-jazz-festival-15-july-2022

Before all this happened Maalouf had been regularly selling out the biggest venues in France, and he sold out the majority of French venues that The Trumpets of Michel-Ange tour has already visited in advance.

Tonight too it looked like the Hammersmith Empire had been almost completely filled by a multi national audience amongst whom were Lebanese, French, Spanish, Arminian , Romanian, German and British.

Maalouf’s made eighteen studio albums in eighteen years (2007-2004) one of which is a symphony, Levantine Symphony no 1, and has released two live albums. While ‘Trumpets of Marc Ange’ is a studio album, it has the feel of a live album as it was recorded live with no overdubs or edits.

He’s also composed at least fifteen and perhaps twenty film scores ( depending which source you consult ). He first came to The Jazz Mann’s attention with one of these, his fourth album ‘Wind’ (2013), the soundtrack he wrote for a revival of a 1927 Rene Clair silent film, “The Prey of the Wind”. Ian Mann’s review giving it 4 out of 5 stars can be found here:
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/ibrahim-maalouf-wind

In 2024 he chaired the jury for the Best Sound Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Classically trained initially by his trumpet playing father, he won classical trumpet competitions in his youth. He’s continued to be active in the classical world and created courses on improvisation for classical musicians at two of France’s most prestigious conservatoires. In January this year he played Hummel’s concerto for trumpet (1803) with the Orchestre National de Cannes.

The last time Maalouf had played a headline concert in London was the ‘Capacity to Love’ concert nearly three years ago, though he had played at the London date of Palestinian-Chiiean singer Eyana’s tour in December.

‘Capacity to Love’ had been a new direction for Maalouf in that it drew heavily on club culture and hip hop Tonight was different again as indicated by the line-up. Saxophonist Mihai Privan and lead guitarist, Maalouf’s long time collabourator François Delporte remained but there was no bass guitar or keys or DJ/programmer. Instead there five T.O.M.A trumpet players on stage with Maalouf.

While tonight club culture and hip hop still had a presence in the mix, they bubbled under rather than being in the foreground. This was mainly occupied by a strong Middle Eastern vibe. In particular the music evoked Lebanese brass bands of the past and perhaps of the present called Fanfares. These are part of Maalouf’s family history. The album cover of ‘Trumpets of Michel Ange’ is an old photograph of a Lebanese Fanfare (who didn’t have quarter tone trumpets) with Maalouf’s grandfather in the back row.

Throughout the two hours of continuous music Maalouf did most of the soloing, with some contributions from Mihai Privan’s sax and from François Delporte’s guitar. The five T.O.M.A trumpets were mainly a tight rhythmic chorus or engaged in call and response with Maalouf. Their full rich sound was enhanced by being contained within the venue, and for the last third of the performance they were joined by six students from the T.O.M.A academy.

The concert had several intertwining messages running through it which it became clear were an expression of Maalouf’s beliefs. It celebrated the importance of cultural identity, of family both narrowly defined (love, marriage, children) and widely defined (the human family), the ideal of shared values and the need to pass those values on from one generation to the next.

Family is a touchstone for Maalouf whose mother and sister were in the Shepherd’s Bush Empire. He calls his team his family, referred to the T.O.M.A trumpeters his “new family” and then invited the audience who were very pleased to see him back in London, to become members of the family too, “ Let’s just get married, all of us tonight.”

The music told the symbolic story of young lovers who marry and start a family, and Maalouf helpfully explained what point in the narrative we had reached. It started joyously with high energy of ‘The Proposal’ which the T.O.M.A trumpets celebrated with a fanfare. Maalouf soloed playing staccato Middle Eastern riffs in a number that had three or four distinct themes, and showed his skill as a composer/arranger in the way all the themes were brought together gloriously by the trumpets in the final bars.

He encouraged the already excited audience to get involved by clapping along to the upbeat Middle Eastern dance rhythm which they did enthusiastically, and it was easy to imagine they were the crowd celebrating the proposal in the street alongside a Lebanese Fanfare band.

‘Love Anthem’ kept up the joyous energetic atmosphere. It had a motif that recurred with variations which I think depicted the lovers. This number was jazzier than the opener especially in one of Maalouf’s solos. The tempo was still jaunty though slower when the music moved on to the lovers’ marriage.

‘Fly with me’ was a delightful bossa nova. The embellishments of Maalouf and the T.O.M.A had echoes of Miles Davis’s ‘Sketches of Spain’, and how they played it also echoed ‘The Birth of The Cool’.There was a touch of flamenco influenced guitar and then a mariachi moment just before the tune subsided. Maalouf had told us the number was about the consummation of the marriage so perhaps the ending was the exhausted lovers collapsing.

The up-tempo strongly Middle Eastern vibe of ‘Zahel’ was a celebration of the wedding. It featured majestic soloing from Maalouf that underlined his mastery of the quarter tone trumpet. A solo from the very talented Mihai Privan began sounding as if he had a quarter tone saxophone and finished with a screaming climax. Then call and response between Maalouf and the other trumpets led into a François Delporte guitar solo and a thunderous drum solo with flashing lights that was a Middle Eastern version of bombastic prog rock.
‘Zahal’ Maalouf explained is a gathering at a wedding of ‘wise men’ whose role is to come up impromptu poetry which they do while drinking arak, and as the music got more and more frenetic it seemed as if these poets might be getting more and more drunk. When the climax came it was tumultuous, and was greeted with the sort of roar usually reserved for the final number of a gig.

Next for the lovers came starting family. ‘The Smile of Rita’ was a sunny gentle Middle Eastern waltz with Delporte contributing flamenco style guitar

Then it was ‘Au Revoir’ depicting the bitter -sweet moment the couple know they have to let go of their now grown children. Maalouf’s playing was melancholic and rose to an emotional crescendo ,after the audience had been recruited to sing a wordless backing vocal. Maalouf related elements of his own story to that of the lovers He told us this own wedding ceremony nearly didn’t happen because of Covid, that ‘The Smile of Rita’ was inspired by his youngest child, and that he himself is having to face the prospect of his oldest child leaving home.

Tellingly he presented a musical portrayal of his father’s arrival in France from Beirut as a refugee.
‘Stranger’ started contemplatively with Maalouf’s trumpet conveying disorientation, sadness and nostalgia, then accelerated leading into a Sturm und Drang drum solo before a dignified and triumphant crescendo.

Maalouf’s conveyed many of the same emotions when in response to many insistent shouted requests from the audience he played ‘Beirut’ from his 2011 album ‘Diagnostics’ (“We are meant to be playing only new material tonight”). You could have heard the proverbial pin drop as Maalouf’s solo trumpet unfurled his feelings for the city before the ensemble joined to help build the tune built to a climax which was followed by a moment of total silence. It was the most emotional moment of the evening.

Dancer Hafsatou Saindou came and went. For me she didn’t really add anything to music that already was replete with dance rhythms and drama. An attractive but unnecessary distraction.

Guest guitarist Kourosh Kanani who has Irish/Iranian heritage, did impress with his virtuosity and musicality. When he had his moment in the spotlight playing unaccompanied he blending jazz and what I think might have been music from Persia.

Thefinal number was preceded by Maalouf making an appeal to come together around shared values. The glorious sound of Maalouf and the T.O.M.A trumpets now eleven in number with six next generation T.O.M.A players having come on stage, resonated round the venue and the light from the phone torches of audience pierced the darkness in the auditorium.

It was a powerful and emotional end to a visceral and immersive two hours which was greeted by prolonged cheers and a standing ovation from an audience who had contributed much to the great atmosphere inside the splendid Hammersmith Empire. Emerging out of that bubble onto the street was a bit of a shock, like having cold water splashed in your face.

The big brass sound of the Trumpets of Michel-Ange had been immense, the music sophisticated and exciting, and lyrical, and above all predominately celebratory and joyful. The marriage brokered by Maalouf between it and the symbolic story of the young lovers had been successful, but should there ever be a divorce the numbers were easily strong enough to stand successfully on their own two feet.

A jazz purist might have felt there wasn’t enough of his or her favourite music in the spotlight other than in the early numbers, though jazz moments were present later Maalouf’s embellishments of his Middle Eastern musical heritage.

Maalouf himself was remarkable in how he made made the concert into an event that embraced the audience. He played high quality solos in every number and if there were one or two fluffed notes in this marathon well he’s human, and the evening was further evidence of his prowess as a composer/arranger who not so much crosses musical genres as soars above them taking what he needs from the landscape below.

It had been a wonderful celebration by Ibrahim Maalouf of his and his father’s heritage, and of how his music can bring hope and joy in very troubled times.

The Trumpets of Michel -Ange tour continues including datesin Casablanca, Athens, and in Turkey. For the full list please see; https://www.ibrahimmaalouf.com/en/accueil/concerts/

COLIN MAY

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