02 If You Go Away

03 Moonlight In Vermont

06 Ponteio

08 Blue Rondo A La Turk

09 Kafi Jazz (Five Rivers)

11 Wave

12 To The End Of The World

13 Morning Has Broken

سنیے عزت مجید کی بی بی سی کے لندن سٹوڈیو میں عنبر خیری سے گفتگو۔

‮موسیقی کو دفنانے کی کوشش کی گئی‬

BBC Asian Network's Nihal interviews Izzat Majeed & the Sachal Musicians - with live music.

BBC Asian Network's Nihal interview with Izzat Majeed & Sachal Musicians

Imagine

Pink Panther - Live

Taxali Gate - Live

Shalamar - Live

Take Five - Live

Jamie Cullum Plays SJE's live version of'You Got It Bad' on his Radio 2 show - 9th September 2014!

SJE performs 'You Got It Bad'

Interview with Izzat Majeed on Jazz FM, 8th November 2014

Jazz fm Interview With Izzat Majeed About Sachal Jazz

Izzat Majeed could have retired quietly, but instead he formed the Sachal Jazz Ensemble and built a music studio in Lahore. The London-based father of three was born and brought up in Lahore. He recalls a vibrant city full of music and culture. When he was a child, Lollywood - Pakistan's film industry - was producing 100 movies a year. He recalls seeing the Dave Brubeck Trio playing in the city as part of America's Jazz Ambassador's Tour. This was the start of a lifelong affection for jazz. As the years passed, a more religious and less culturally tolerant society took shape in Pakistan. Izzat was extremely disheartened by this. Lollywood all but disappeared, and the classical musicians at it's heart disappeared with it. They had to make ends meet in any way they could. when he retired, he decided to do something about it, and the Sachal Jazz Ensemble was born.

My Pakistani Jazz Orchestra

Sachal Jazz Orchestra
Drawing on influences from Lahore to New York, the Ensemble presents innovative jazz and bossa nova standards from their recent album that has captured musical imaginations with a flood of internet hits. Their fresh re-working of Dave Brubeck’s iconic Take Five prompted the jazz legend to exclaim that “this is the most interesting and different recording of Take Five that I have ever heard.”
Other innovative interpretations include Antonio Carlos Jobim’s ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ and Dave Grusin’s ‘Mountain Dance’, the latter highlighting some incredible sitar playing. In the reworked ‘Misty’, composed by Erroll Garner, the sitar and tabla supply the melody lines layered on a lush rhythmic foundation provided by the traditional clay pot, ghungroos (ankle-bells), triangle, and tambourine. Blended with these south Asian instruments are sweeping classical violins and bursts of western drum, guitar and bass to create a scintillating hybrid, a reminder that the boundaries of jazz remain hard to define.
The inspiration behind the Sachal Jazz Ensemble and a wider Sachal project is London- based businessman-turned-studio boss Izzat Majeed. Working with consultants from London’s Abbey Road studios, he set up state-of-the-art studios in Lahore, rescued Pakistani musicians from poverty and brought them together to make music. The revival has prompted comparisons with the Buena Vista Social Club’s rediscovery of a lost generation of Cuban musicians.
Majeed’s wider goal is to rub fresh magic into Lahore’s musical traditions, once a sub- continental cultural hub. Majeed says Pakistan’s classical music scene was decimated in the 1980s when the dictator General Zia-ul-Haq, following an austere Islamic line, crushed the local film industry. Hundreds of musicians, employed to record film scores, lost their jobs and went on to ply less lyrical trades: a cellist ran a tea stall; a violinist sold vegetables from his bicycle; others sold clothes or electrical parts. Under a cloud of growing conservatism, some Sachal musicians said they dared not practise at home, fearing they could offend pious neighbours. “There was a cultural impasse in Pakistan,” says Majeed. “After the coup of Zia-ul Haq, our society and culture was transformed into something dark. The film industry died, television was taken over by primitive authoritarian entities, and our great musicians were left without patronage. Zia’s version of culture raped us of the rich musical history that we had.” Majeed, who grew up listening to jazz greats like Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong in Lahore, says there are similarities between the improvisational aspects of classical music from the sub-continent and Jazz. “Take Five’s rhythmic structure and time scale is pretty close to our kind of music,” Majeed says. “The concept of free period — remaining within the melody structure and time scale — is something our musicians love. Take Five has done so well because it was something new and well-played.”

Discography

Single: Take Five - sm005
Single: Desafinado - sm012
Album: Sachal Jazz - Interpretations of Jazz Standards and Bossa Nova - sm019

Sachal Music

Popular tracks