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Rob Luft: Dahab Days

By Chris May
October 6, 2023
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In an interview with AAJ in 2020, Rob Luft was asked to name six all-time favourite albums. Number one on his list was Norwegian guitarist

Eivind Aarset

guitar

" data-original-title="" title="">Eivind Aarset's Dream Logic (ECM, 2012), a duo project with electronicist

" data-original-title="" title="">Jan Bang. Said Luft: "It's an album that really sounds like dreams, it's wonderful how it floats for forty-five, fifty minutes and teleports you to another place. The production is impeccable and the sound is so glistening."

Luft could have been describing Dahab Days, or at any rate, the first half of it. The album attracts adjectives like redemptive and blissful like a magnet attracts iron filings. It was made with the same core lineup which made Life Is The Dancer (Edition, 2020), a quintet completed by tenor saxophonist

Joe Wright

saxophone, tenor

" data-original-title="" title="">Joe Wright, pianist and Hammond organist

Joe Webb

piano

" data-original-title="" title="">Joe Webb, bass guitarist

Tom McCredie

bass, acoustic

" data-original-title="" title="">Tom McCredie and drummer

Corrie Dick

drums
b.1990

" data-original-title="" title="">Corrie Dick. Guest trumpeter

Byron Wallen

trumpet
b.1969

" data-original-title="" title="">Byron Wallen returns, this time alongside new guest, alto saxophonist

Steve Buckley

" data-original-title="" title="">Steve Buckley. And, for the first time, Luft uses bowed strings: six of the ten tracks include violinist

Alice Zawadzki

vocals

" data-original-title="" title="">Alice Zawadzki and/or the Amika String Quartet.

The music, as before, is Luft's deceptively simple blend of jazz, prog-rock and folk (British, Balkan and Arabic). There is, however, a subtle but unmistakable division—either intentional or by chance—between the first half of the album (tracks 1-5) and the second half (tracks 6-10). Partly this is down to the inclusion of two covers and a traditional Arabic tune in the second half, while the first five tunes were all composed by Luft. Partly it is because of the arrangements and instrumental textures. Wright's energised broken-note tenor takes Apex Twins' "Flim" (#6) into

Pharoah Sanders

saxophone, tenor
1940 - 2022

" data-original-title="" title="">Pharoah Sanders territory; there are shades of Africa on

Duke Ellington

piano
1899 - 1974

" data-original-title="" title="">Duke Ellington's "African Flower" (#7) and, more explicitly, on Luft's "Sunshine Music" (#8), which brings a touch of highlife via Buckley's jaunty penny whistle. On the tenth, closing track, the traditional Arab tune "Lamma Bada Yatathanna," Wallen essays growls and smears that evoke the great

Cootie Williams

trumpet
1911 - 1985

" data-original-title="" title="">Cootie Williams.

The whole album is a delight and, if a reservation is to be made, it is only that the slightly different feels of the first and second halves do not work to its overall advantage. Luft's blend has yet to be fully integrated and signed off. There is no doubt that he will get there.

(Luft's 2020 interview can be read here).

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Track Listing

Be Water My Friend; Dahab Days; Daylight Saving Time; Dreamworld; Bliss Out; Flim; African Flower; Sunshine Music; Endless Summer; Lamma Bada Yatathanna.

Personnel

Rob Luft

guitar

Joe Wright

saxophone, tenor

Joe Webb

piano

Tom McCredie

bass, acoustic

Corrie Dick

drums

Additional Instrumentation

Alice Zawadzki: vocals, violin (1, 5, 9); Byron Wallen: trumpet (5, 10); Steve Buckley: alto saxophone, penny whistle (5, 8); Amika String Quartet (2, 4, 6, 9).

Album information

Title: Dahab Days | Year Released: 2023 | Record Label: Edition Records

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