The Bay Area, bastion of multiculturalism that it is, has always been the home of musicians who are comfortable in more than one musical tradition — “bi-musical” as my ethnomusicology teacher used to say. At Seventh Avenue Performances this weekend, you can find Escalay (Water Wheel), a group that combines classical Arabic repertoire with fusion jazz. Its leader is guitarist and oud player Tom Chandler, an East Coast transplant who studied at the Berklee (not Berkeley) School of Music and with famous oud master Hamza el Din (whose composition Escalay appears on the Kronos Quartet’s Pieces of Africa album.)
This is real crossover and the repertoire the band covers — everything from John Coltrane and free-jazz genius Ornette Coleman, to el Din and legendary Egyptian vocalist Oum Kulthum as well as original compositions and improvisations — makes the connections and differences between the traditions immediately apparent. Of course, this isn’t the only way to hear something like this in San Francisco this weekend (check out our interview with Cornelius Dufallo), but having an embarrassment of riches makes Escalay no less valuable.