The Cactus of Knowledge Rabih Abou-Khalil Enja, 2001 Buy it online Tracks 1. The Lewinski March 2. Business as Usual 3. Fraises et Crême Fraîche 4. Got to Go Home 5. Oum Saïd 6. Maltese Chicken Farm 7. Ma Muse M'amuse 8. Pont Neuf Reviewed by Claude Lalumière	Rabih Abou-Khalil is a perverse musician. He has taken the oud, a traditional Arabian lute, and crafted with its help a body of music for which it was never intended. He handles his instrument as if it were an acoustic jazz guitar and assembles, from album to album, a fresh gathering of unexpected players. The results are scrumptiously delicious. Abou-Khalil is a prolific recording artist and not all of his albums offer similar heights of perverse pleasures. Mostly, Abou-Khalil offers a blend of traditional Arab soundscapes and post-bop grooves. His sound casts a splendid spell. Occasionally, though, Abou-Khalil will stretch his bent for strange fusions towards yet more unlikely juxtapositions. These are the times his music most enchants me. Perhaps his most accomplished in this vein are Odd Times, a live concert evoking the marching band music of John Philip Sousa (with a rousing performance by Howard Levy on harmonica), and the superb Arabian Waltz, which paired Abou-Khalil's core band with the Balanescu String Quartet and created musical epics that seamlessly combined avant-garde neoclassical with jazz rhythms and the storytelling sweep of the maqam. For his twelfth release, The Cactus of Knowledge, Abou-Khalil has decided to revisit big band jazz with, among others, a host of brass players, including Eddie Allen and Dave Ballou on trumpet, Tom Varner on French horn, Dave Bargeron on euphonium, Michel Godard on tuba, Antonio Hart on alto sax and Ellery Eskelin on tenor sax. Also in on the fun are Gabriele Mirabassi on clarinet, Vincent Courtois on cello, Nabil Khaiat on frame drums and Jarrod Cagwin on drums. Despite the explicit evocation of a past musical idiom, all the compositions here are Abou-Khalil's own. This time, the fusion is not as radically different from his habitual output as on Odd Times and Arabian Waltz, but it is nevertheless an album filled with an infectious love of music. The performances are exuberant and listeners are treated to a swinging time. A particular highlight is "Ma Muse M'amuse," with Vincent Courtois' cello in prominent display. The piece moves from big band boisterousness to Arabian flavor of the maqam, peppered with Courtois' wistful evocations of Depression-era Americana and chaotic explosions of avant-garde improvisations. Impressively, showcasing Abou-Khalil's virtuoso skills at composition and arrangement, these disparate references unite to form an integrated musical whole. The Cactus of Knowledge may not be one of Abou-Khalil's crowning efforts, but it's a fine album, another undeniable testament to the breadth of his musical interests. Like all of Abou-Khalil's music, it ignores and transgresses political, ethnic and geographical boundaries to celebrate a global music that embraces differences by letting them play together. | October 2001 Claude Lalumière is a Blue Coupe magazine contributing editor, as well as a freelance writer, editor, translator and publishing consultant. He owned and ran danger!, Montreal's chart-topping mid-1990s alternative bookstore. His published criticism can be found on his Web site.	Abou-Khalil is a prolific recording artist and not all of his albums offer similar heights of perverse pleasures. Mostly, Abou-Khalil offers a blend of traditional Arab soundscapes and post-bop grooves. His sound casts a splendid spell.