VERSE 2. Jul 4th - Jul 6th

First, thanks to all those of you who sent me encouraging e-mails about this blog. Sara even told me I got the facts right, so thus far, consider me reliable.

I didn’t exactly know how something like this would be received; see, we Finns don’t talk that much, so this might be a bit heavy to digest for some.

For the benefit of Mr. Kite and those who recognized themselves from the above, I spent the last couple of hours laboriously shortening this down to the most crucial main points, elaborating at large where necessary, so behold, the standard Finnish version:

Begin conversation.
MAIRE FROM FINLAND: “How was Beirut?”
TOPI FROM FINLAND: [grunts]
End conversation. Drink some more in silence.

...

For the rest of us, here's a bit of back-tracking from the last couple of days. I'll go immerse myself in the words of Kahlil Gibran and get some more coffee.

-J


Fri Jul 4th 2008

Today was the first and only day so far when I was in a less than upbeat mood. I got up on the wrong foot with the internet, trying to upload pics to the previous entry, working from a slow connection, and Murphy being The Man upstairs, my computer crashed the second I’d uploaded the very last photo and written the very last caption. Remember, kids, thou shalt not blog without thine power supply. Since the last thing I want to do on a trip like this is spend hours glued to my laptop screen, you might say my mood went sour faster than you could say kiss’ommak.

Ziyad and I’d agreed to have my first lesson at 6 PM, but then I got a Facebook invite to Jean’s regular jazz gig at Hamra Terrace, where Ziyad was listed as one of the guests, also beginning at 6. He also had a second gig with his regular trio at Walima’s in Hamra at 10, so I put two and two together and we postponed the lesson again for the next day. Samir’s brother Khaled called me up to say that he’d call me again around – guess? – 6 PM so I could get my stuff (hiking backpack, regular backpack, oud and guitar) to Samir’s empty apartment in Mar Elias in West Beirut, so I spent the day just strolling around.

I decided to take the walk from Hamra along Bliss Street and the AUB (American University of Beirut) campus – which has to be the most beautiful university campus in the world – to the Corniche, which is the ‘beach boulevard’ in Beirut. Felt like the same stereotype Asian tourist Michael Hsu was mocking with my camera in overdrive, playing tourist and taking photos of just about everything.

A sea view towards East Beirut from the Corniche.

The Corniche towards the west.

The contrasts get to you. They really do. This is probably one of the few places in the world where so many seemingly polar opposites co-exist side by side. Some more successfully than others; at least the buildings don’t wage war against each other. Walking along the Corniche towards the new Downtown (aka former Beirut Central District or BCD), you’ll see totally bombed ruins of former buildings full of shell holes standing side by side with 5-star hotels luxurious enough to take on any posh hotel anywhere in the world and most likely come out on top. Nowhere did this strike me more than between the obliterated old Holiday Inn (a feared sniper look-out during the war) and the new Phoenicia Intercontinental, literally rubbing shoulders with one another. Back in ’95-’96 when we lived here, the entire area now bursting at its seams with architectural jewels was little more than a bulldozed pile of rubble and ruin. And, of course, the skeleton of the Holiday Inn was still standing even then. We passed that gruesome reminder of the war every single day as my father drove us to school.

The lavish Phoenicia Intercontinental. Note the destroyed Holiday Inn in the background on the left.

Three sides to every story... the Holiday Inn from another angle.

Then there’s the statue of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri. You’ll notice behind the statue the ruins of the old St. George Hotel. This is where the car bomb with which he was assassinated in 2005 went off. Makes you think.

Rafiq Hariri's statue looks on from the rubble of the car bomb that assassinated him.

Ana habibi, inta Hariri.

I continued along the seashore towards the new Downtown area, which struck me as very… I don’t want to say Disney-esque and quote the Lonely Planet guidebook, so I’ll use “Muscat-esque”. Immaculately clean streets, (even traffic lights for pedestrians), no traffic whatsoever with the center being a pedestrians-only zone, beautifully reconstructed houses. This is probably the most visible part of Hariri’s legacy. Yet there’s something a bit unsettling about the picture. Sitting in one of the myriad cafés by Place d´Étoile drinking another café mocca I couldn’t help but think that this had very little to do with the Beirut I knew. Beautiful? Unquestionably. Absolutely breathtaking. Still, it does seem to stick out of the rest of the cityscape like a, uh… manicured thumb.

Another seafront view closer to the new rebuilt Downtown.

Exhibit 1 from Downtown.

Exhibit 2 from Downtown.

Exhibit 3 from Downtown. The architecture is unbelievable. Note the absence of cars.

Downtown near Place d´Étoile.

The Rafiq Hariri Mosque (background) by day.

A typical modern Downtown street with its cafés.

And behold, my future was revealed.

I met Samir’s brother Khaled back at Place Sassine and moved out of the hostel into Samir’s place in Mar Elias in West Beirut. Another Lebanese hospitality trip, having an empty three-bedroom apartment all to myself for the rest of my stay – for free. After Khaled made sure I was settled in and comfortable, he left and I took a quick shower before I headed out and walked to Walima’s just off Hamra Street where Ziyad’s trio were to play at 10 PM.

That’s another thing about Beirut. If you like to walk from place to place, you’re a weirdo. Period. Beirutis don’t walk. They go by car or take a cab. Try to argue that a 25 minute walk is actually a great way to get to know the city, and the response you get is “fucking Europeans, man…”.

It was great to see Ziyad again, though I was a bit bummed I’d missed him guesting with Jean’s jazz band at Hamra Terrace earlier because I’d had to move my things. Interestingly, they’d done Miles Davis’s song “Nardis” with Ziyad playing the theme on the oud, and I’d toyed with the exact same idea a while ago. I always thought the melody was just begging to be played on an oud. We talked music and it seemed like word of my performance with the guys had traveled, which took me by some surprise. Met new people once again. Felt good. Ziyad’s band consisted of him on oud and vocals, a bassist on fretless and a percussionist on cajón. The two sets were a mixture of his original compositions as well as rearrangements of old tunes by the likes of Mohamed Abdel Wahab. After the dining tipped its scales more towards the wining, the people at the restaurant really got into it and it was impossible to see the band behind all the people dancing. By the end of their second set I was more than ready to hit the sack so I took a cab back to Samir’s and dozed off.

Ziyad's trio live at Walimat. Note the ever-present cigarette.

Sat 5th Jul 2008

Air conditioned bedroom sez the stocks in quality sleep went through the roof.

Spent the day having a look around my new neighborhood and practicing to prepare myself for my first lesson with Ziyad. Mar Elias seems like a very vibrant area of the city. Though relatively close to Corniche al Mazraa which has been the scene of a lot of the recent unrest, Khaled assured me it was safe and that if something started happening, he’d let me know immediately. Bustling streets, noisy traffic, once again newer apartment buildings side by side with older ones with bullet holes in them, lest anyone forget. I felt more at home, and besides, I was a (European) walking distance from Hamra.

Iz my babies.

Ziyad came by Samir’s at 6 PM and we started with the basics of traditional classical Arabic taqasim improvisation with three different maqams (scales). Ziyad didn’t bring his own oud to the lesson, so we kept switching back and forth. The first things he asked me to do was improvise something so he could get an idea of my level on the instrument, and once I did, I quickly realized that as far as authenticity goes, I wasn’t even in the vicinity of a neighborhood of a ballpark. Ziyad went over several basic ‘rules’ of the classical way of taqasim improvisation in his laidback drawl, punctuated with more “yani, bas…”’s than I could count. Maybe I should – I recorded the entire lesson. He seemed to have a very clear way of putting things, and the fact that he had also studied jazz and music involving harmony in general (Arabic music in the traditional sense has no harmony, but is based solely on melody and rhythm), gave us some common ground. We seemed to speak the same language. Not that I could automatically carry out what he was teaching me, but in principle, I understood. In the 90 minutes we spent I learned more new things than I probably had in the past two years. The whole tetrachord concept for instance was totally new to me.

After the lesson I spent some time at Café Younis interwebbing again, and after Jean texted me I went to his place to hang out and delve into his enormous music library. Talked, ate and listened to great music until about 2.30 AM. He asked me to drop by the next day to do some recording with him, which I gladly agreed to. I also managed to pull the rug out from underneath him when it came up that I’d seen BOTH Richard Bona and Jonas Hellborg live. I don’t think he’s quite recovered yet.


Sun 6th Jul 2008

Hmm. Woke up (late, what is it with me?). Played some guitar, did some solfege exercises and went to find something to eat. I realized that my coffee intake had diminished an unforgivable amount ever since I got here – meaning no morning coffee to get me started for days – so I rewarded myself with two espressos. My parents called to check in.

Went back to Samir’s to start transcribing Ziyad’s lesson from my laptop. Spent quite long writing notes of all his comments, trying to get everything down as exactly as possible. Didn’t finish it so there’s still work tomorrow. Ronnie’s girlfriend Maureen called me up and we decided to get some coffee and take another look at Downtown Beirut.

Taking notes.

With Maureen as the resident (Asian) tour(ist) guide, we spent a couple of hours taking photos, talking about our backgrounds, the country and its history, and had a long conversation on the war at Martyr’s Square. She also managed to take some truly amazing photos which I’ll put up as soon as I get them; my camera didn’t quite seem to cut it as well as hers. Also went up to Virgin Megastore’s roof, which was a great view.

The Rafiq Hariri Mosque by night.

Maureen dropped me off at Jean’s with my guitar in tow around 9 PM. We started working on a tune he’d done with Ziyad and some other players, which was an atmospheric mix of Arabic oud, flamenco vocals, flute, bass and electronica. Very interesting. I had to improvise all the guitar parts off the top of my head as I’d never heard the tune before, but we seemed to really think alike and speak the same musical language. Great guitar tone too, my Flaxwood direct into his computer with some tweaking and effects care of Amplitube.

It’s not the first time on this trip that I’ve felt like all the elements that I’ve dreamt of putting together in my own musical-statement-in-the-making are finally within an arm’s reach. Both Jean and Ziyad seem to be so hardcore into so much of the exact same stuff as I am, it’s unbelievable. Even the fretless stuff I’d done in Frankfurt which I showed Jean was received with nothing but enthusiasm. Wish I’d had that guitar with me here. Jean kept telling me I should really move here so we could work more. Seriously considering.

Recording at Jean's home studio.

A great, relaxed session. We were both very happy how it turned out. Again, quite an honor to get to record on the same track as guys like this. Jean said we might do another one with just oud, bass and guitar before I leave. A chicken sandwich and some videos courtesy of a sick Turkish trio later, I was in the cab (getting better at bargaining already) on my way back to Mar Elias.

As the icing on the cake I think I finally resolved what I’d play at a certain audition in September. Water closet maketh the heart go ponder.

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