With the Quran largely silent on the matter, there have long been debates on the role of music in Muslim life. Some scholars have cited verses from their holy book and hadiths, including some where Muhammad destroyed musical instruments, to argue for the prohibition of music as something that can mislead people away from the path of God. Others, however, point to instances where Muhammad permitted music at weddings or during Eid celebrations to note that the listener’s intentions matter most. Despite continued controversies on the propriety of music in some sects, it is undeniable that a fascinating musical form unique to Arabic art music – the maqam – developed over the centuries. Maqam is not a genre or style in itself, but rather a musical building block of specific scales, phrases, and melodic themes. While varying across particular cultures in the Middle East, maqam generally follows very well-defined rules, as specific emotions, locations, and histories are associated with specific maqams. And yet, the form often allows for improvisation and creation in the moment. It also often relies on what, in Western parlance, would be dubbed microtonal notes, not the equal temperament system. Given the freedom of creation and removal from Western norms, it is perhaps unsurprising that many artists have sought an intersection between maqam and jazz. Duke Ellington’s “Far East Suite,” Yusef Lateef’s Eastern Sounds (Moodsville, 1962), and Herbie Mann’s Impressions of the Middle East (Atlantic, 1967) come to mind, though often use only tinges of Arabic influences to add flourish to mostly Western music. Other artists, including Ahmed Abdul Malik, Rabih Abou-Khali, and Anouar Brahem, have dug deeper into the interconnectivity of art forms. But few have as richly intersected both artistic influences as fully as trumpeter/santur player/vocalist Amir ElSaffar. This is particularly evident on his latest recording, Inner Spaces (Ornithology, 2025), a duet with Italian electronic musician Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch. 

Inner Spaces is not quite Arabic music. Not quite jazz. Not quite electronic music. And yet, it feels equally at home in all three categories, and several others. The record’s flexibility comes largely from ElSaffar’s ready willingness to challenge the rigidity of the Iraqi maqam. While staying respectful of its tradition and meaning, he distills maqam to its essence, or as he calls it, its musical DNA. Then he splices these building blocks with other stylistic thoughts into a new artistic chimera. The approach serves as a melting pot of musical impulses and is also a beautiful reflection on the idealized, even if not always achieved, cultural diversity of the American dream. It reflects ElSaffar’s identity as the American son of an Iraqi immigrant father and an American mother, who grew up surrounded by Western music and only later searched for his paternal musical ancestry. And, as such, his method of combining influences has been a key element of ElSaffar’s music – from his sextet to his big band Rivers of Sound ensemble – for the last two decades, as it emerges directly from his heart. 

But what sets Inner Spaces apart from some of ElSaffar’s prior albums, like Inana (Pi, 2011) or The Other Shore (Outhere, 2021), is its emotional rawness. While not performing alone, Inner Spaces finds the trumpeter/santurist/vocalist at his most exposed with nowhere to hide. At times, Bianchi Hoesch can slip into the background, providing a rich backdrop for the trumpet. At others, he magnifies ElSaffar’s statements or even spins them around, as if surrounding the horn’s clarion call in a swirling sandstorm. And, in yet others, Bianchi Hoesch forces ElSaffar to respond to himself, creating a haunting aura of mystery. Across the work, the electronic artist reveals his ingenuity in the subtlety and care with which he approaches his collaborator. Not studied in the maqam, Bianchi Hoesch’s reliance on his natural inclinations and his colleague’s guidance allows him to further underscore those elements that give such music its power. The result is a record that transports you to a world full of beauty and wonder, sincerity and strength. Inner Spaces is as impossible to ignore as it is to narrowly define.

PostGenre: The record sounds great on speakers but seems to provide a particularly immersive experience on headphones. Lorenzo, is it more difficult to do 3D modeling of music live compared to in the recording studio, as you have less control over the different variables – acoustics of the room, audience noise, and other factors- live?

Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch: Actually, it’s quite the opposite. What I generally do, and what I did with Amir for this record specifically,  uses many tools I developed specifically for live treatment. The tools are incredibly powerful and very immersive. There is also a lot of improvisation and interplay live. In the studio, it was very difficult to put all the loud speakers – twelve or fourteen of them – in a stereo image and maintain the space inside the mix. 

PG: Do you feel your background in architecture guides you at all in 3D modeling music?

LBH: Not so much with this album, but for live performances, yes. I think the relationship with space is a very important parameter for my music. I always try to fit in some surround system, if possible. It’s almost always possible now, so the focus is often, instead, on using what is available. And I think that mindset comes from architecture. It comes from my love of composers like [Iannis] Xenakis, whom I studied at the university in the first years of working in Paris, and who was in the space between music and architecture. But, in general, Amir and I have a shared sensibility for the shape of things; for the form of a piece. Things come about very naturally when we work together, but we also think a lot about the shape of a piece –  its length, how we go from one place to another, and how we can introduce a new idea. I think it is incredibly clear on the album that we consider those sorts of things. The shape of the four movements of the album is something special. On “Spirits,” for instance, there are different moments that are strongly linked but also very different. 

PG: A little earlier, you mentioned improvisation. How exactly did the pieces on Inner Spaces come together in terms of both the structure of precomposition and leaving space for improvisation? Are there open-ended sections for improvised solos, or are you improvising in response to each other?

Amir ElSaffar: I can only speak from my perspective, but each piece has a different process that created it. Most of it simply comes through our time spent together. We worked on a few different projects leading up to this one, including a recent dance project we did with an Italian dance company and choreographer. The pieces developed over a few years with months of rehearsal, listening, relistening, and sharing ideas, leading to the four pieces on the record. 

But the pieces result from spontaneous, wide-open, improvised encounters Lorenzo and I had together. We spent a week in a cabin in northern Italy where we played completely freely improvised pieces. Through that week, we settled on the style of the pieces, their particular modes, and the rhythms and textures we wanted to develop. Then we refined them further. 

My part varies wildly from one performance to the next. So if we do these pieces live, I’ll do many different phrases each time. But I follow a general arc in every performance for all four pieces. The second piece, “Spirits,” is most specific in terms of having a melody that, every time, gets played the same way. The piece is also very rhythmically defined, as well. But, even so, there’s still so much openness on my side. Lorenzo has to program many things so they are pre-set and ready to go. But then he also has other things that can be totally wide open, so he can respond in the moment. 

LBH: At the very beginning of this project, Amir sent me several files where he was talking about traditional maqam and explaining how it works in terms of what in the music is important to keep and what is more flexible. This information kept the conversation going between us, and I used those conversations to build my software to put microtonal scales inside my synthesizer. 

All the tools I now use with Amir follow the maqam scales, in a very open way. But they weren’t like that at the very beginning. The inability to tap into those microtones was initially a big constraint. So that area was where I spent most of the time building. Once these tools were available in a way that would respect the maqam frequencies, it allowed us to improvise in a much more comfortable way.  

PG: You mentioned your prior work together with an Italian dance company. Do you feel elements of that project can be heard on Inner Spaces, or is it a completely isolated experience?

AES: I would say the two projects we did together before the dance project led more directly into Inner Spaces.  I don’t know if the work we did with Michele Di Stefano, the Italian choreographer I referenced earlier, shaped this album much musically. I don’t think the actual material or the pieces we played in that Flamenco project necessarily reemerged or informed our process this time. Maybe some of the tools we used did. 

But I think the relationship that Lorenzo and I formed throughout four projects has provided a deepening of trust and understanding of one another’s aesthetics and expectations. When you know how each other thinks- and it is the same as when I improvise with a pianist or drummer or any other musician that I know very well – you’re in a dialogue where you’re not just throwing something out and getting something totally different. There’s a call and response. There’s a synergy. And that’s something that has developed through our four projects together over the last almost decade. 

PG: Traditional maqam pieces are often tied to specific places and different tribes. Amir, your work focuses significantly on musically bringing cultures together. Do you see electronics as a different culture, even though not as easily pinpointed to a specific location necessarily?

AES: Yeah, I  feel like, in introducing jazz musicians to maqam and seeing how the two forms come together, as I’ve done in the past, I have followed a transcultural approach. Electronic music is similar to maqam in terms of being a system of modes, melodies, tones, and rhythms. But there’s a culture that comes specifically with maqam, and the same is true with electronic music. The latter is a less than a century old way of making sound, and the approaches that Lorenzo uses are even more recent. Yet there’s still cultural associations with it. There are spaces in which electronic sound is more prevalent, and today’s most popular music is dominated by electronic elements, being either almost completely electronic or at least electronically manipulated. So, in a way, bridging maqam and electronic music does become another type of conversation across cultures. Time too, since so much of the maqam builds on ancient traditions and electronic music, just by how recently it’s been implemented, is something very contemporary. 

PG:  Was there ever a concern about incorporating electronics since it is so much more modern and different from the tradition of maqam? 

AES: I would say in terms of it being a tradition or a part of its cultural context, maqam is something very specific. Iraqi maqam, which is the branch I most specialize in, has even more particularly rigid rules for semi-improvised structures that performers have to adhere to for it to be a valid performance. That rigidity is a little less present when you go to other traditions like Egyptian or Syrian maqam. Turkish maqam is particularly freer, though still very specific in how the music develops over phrases and what audiences have come to expect when they hear it. Maqam is almost more than just using musical tools; it’s almost using physics at some point, because there’s a way that the tones exhibit gravitational pull on one another in their microtonal language. And through that gravitational pull, emerge both melodies and rhythmic structures. 

My interest has always been in understanding what makes this maqam language work. By that, I do not mean what makes it work from the historical, traditional, and cultural side. I am involved in those practices as well, but I am particularly interested in understanding the physics of maqam, or what the inevitable parts are that make these structures work. I sometimes call those elements of maqam its musical DNA. And I like to see how that DNA can become something malleable that can be infused into a jazz context, or Western classical, or electronics. 

The biggest barrier is always the microtones, because someone coming from jazz probably has never encountered these exact microtones. A  classical musician might specialize in other branches of microtonal music from Twentieth or Twenty-First Century Western classical composers. But that music also takes a different approach. And as Lorenzo mentioned, he had to create his software to approach some things in a very specific manner. That aspect was always going to be a barrier toward getting started and making music. But once we crossed that barrier, it opened up infinite possibilities. 

LBH: Yeah. The other thing I want to add is that, as a contemporary composer with electronics, in a way, playing the maqam scale is just a tool I can use. Maqam is a language for electronics that is totally new, expanding, and evolving. My work focuses on the relationship that my computer can have with other instruments. And now we have built this relationship and can play this music – these four pieces; this one-hour-long gig- together. With that relationship built, we can also play other music together more comfortably. It takes time to build a relationship, but the relationship is horizontal. It is two instrumentalists on the scene playing two very different instruments. No different than a violin and a piano playing together. 

PG: Lorenzo, do you feel your approach towards this project is similar to the one you took when working with Ballaké Sissoko, as his music also has roots in an old tradition, albeit from a different part of the world? 

LBH: Yeah, my approach was exactly the same. However, the relationships we developed were very different because Amir was already here. He’s a neighbor. Because he was born and grew up in the United States, he knows the culture of the West very well. 

Ballaké is very different from Amir because he was born in Mali. He cannot read music. He barely speaks French. And so, the relationship was very different, and our playing together was primarily based on music or rehearsing. But some facets are very similar. The relationship that Amir has with the repertoire, for instance, is very similar to what Ballaké has with his repertoire. They both grab phrases, harmonies, and ideas and develop them in very new ways. And both are very fertile for electronics. So, there were similar things, but they are also very different.

PG: And then there are moments, as on “Tahlila,” where you take other recorded parts by Amir, and he improvises in response to himself. Where did that idea come from?

AES: Well, the reason I named the song “Tahlila” is because it reminded me of a vicar recording like the Sufi Dhikr or Dhikr ritual I heard from Iraq, where many people are singing. Thirty or forty voices sing the same melody, but in such a heterophonic way where they’re all moving in slightly different directions. The effect of hearing my voice getting swirled around the room and compounded upon itself multiple times, but moving at slightly different times gives a form of polyphony that’s unfamiliar in a lot of traditions. But it reminded me of the technique in Dhikr. I love those kinds of hidden gems that occur in our practice when something that is a technique or approach to what Lorenzo has built in his own software and has developed based on his own aesthetic and his own ingenuity suddenly triggers a cultural practice that goes back thousands of years. It is being produced with cutting-edge technology, yet it brings us into something that has been practiced for thousands of years. Those are very exciting moments in this process when these unexpected occurrences emerge. 

PG: Amir, was it weird for you to hear your own sound used in that way?

AES: Thanks to having worked together for almost a decade now –  Lorenzo and I first worked together in 2015 or 2016- I was already familiar with Lorenzo’s approach to using other recordings of me like that, which helps. But the very first time I played the trumpet or sang, and he slapped back at me, it was surprising. There’s such a measured approach in maqam and how you gradually let the phrases unfold. One melody leads to the next. When playing opposite my own recordings, it did not follow the natural flow of parts and messed with my head a few times. There was definitely some getting used to it. 

But we also had conversations about it. Lorenzo and I would talk about things that were working and that were not working for me in terms of my sensibility and my expectations coming out of the maqam language. So, for instance, hearing myself played in reverse often messed with me. It was basically playing something in retrograde, to play the same melody backward. It throws everything on its head in a way that wasn’t quite making sense at first. I don’t think we necessarily use that particular tool as much in our work. Maybe it’s still there in some cases, but that’s just an example of picking and choosing which tools worked and which techniques kind of fulfilled the process. 

LBH: Many musicians have, like Amir, studied hard to build their own sound. Often, unlike Amir, they can become overly protective of their sound because their sound is their personality. It’s very difficult to encounter the kind of generosity Amir provides when he puts his sound on the table, to let me work on it, and then respond to it. And the more and more we work together, the more trusting Amir has become. 

PG: Is it that trust that you enjoy most about working together?

LBH: No, I primarily like Amir as a person and also artistically how he mixes different cultures and masters them at an incredibly high level. The sound of the trumpet is very Western, but what he can do with the instrument goes in a totally different direction. There’s no narrow line to follow when he plays. That approach is also incredibly fertile for my electronics, and I greatly enjoyed being there. When I play with most other jazz musicians, the opportunity is less fertile. Fewer doors are open. 

AES: I similarly had very limited experience working with people in electronic music before Lorenzo and I’s first project together. But my impression was that most electronic sounds were very grating and harsh. Electronic musicians can access the entire dynamic spectrum at the flip of a switch or the click of a mouse. That doesn’t demand the same kind of labor from a musician as with acoustic instruments. If I want to jump three octaves on the trumpet, I need to spend a lot of time practicing to produce something.  There’s also a smoothness that’s natural to most acoustic instruments I’ve worked with. I was much more accustomed to acoustic instruments before I worked with Lorenzo.

I was very pleasantly moved by Lorenzo’s approach when we first met. I felt like I was working with a fellow musician and not an electronic machine. I could feel the human behind the electronic sound. I could feel his heart and his sense of sensitivity and sensibilities coming through in his sound. That’s true whether he was processing my sound or creating his own. I was quite blown away and didn’t know that approach was possible before. Over the years, my appreciation of what he does has only deepened. 

I also partly attribute that to Lorenzo’s background. He’s coming to the music as somebody who has known and worked with computer-based electronic music for over forty years, since this technology first became available back in the 1980s. But he also studied jazz piano, and I’ve heard him play mean solos on “Solar” and other standards. He also plays clarinet. Because he has also worked in the acoustic sphere and understands harmony from that perspective, if I’m unable to express something I want in a particular way, he’ll hear right away. If I’m switching to another chord, he’ll jump with me. That’s not something that every electronic musician would be able to jump onto right away. Of course, now electronic music is as big a field as acoustic music. So the term “electronic music” is like saying that I play “acoustic music.” But there’s something special in how Lorenzo can see the music from both perspectives. And, as a result, even as widely different as the instruments we use and the traditions we draw from, are, we can always find a rich common ground.

‘Inner Spaces’ is out now on Ornithology Productions. It can be purchased on Bandcamp. More information about Amir ElSaffar and Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch can be found on their respective websites.

Photo credit: @soukizy