Embryo in Morocco (2000)
The Embryo tour bus has been on its way to Africa since the beginning of August. On board are Christian Burchard and Karsten Hochapfel from Embryo, who had just traveled as far as the Middle East. Otherwise for many new faces: Dirk Engelhardt on tenor saxophone, Max Weissenfeldt and Boris Geiger on percussion instruments, Nick Mccarthy on bass, Wanja on alto saxophone and Marja Burchard on keyboards.
The concert tour began in northern Spain, where they had been trapped by a huge wildfire after a few gigs on the Catalan coast and arrived far too late for the next gig, as the only escape route from the all-consuming flames was via France.
The unusual sound of alto and tenor saxophone blended well with the embryo sounds. By the time one of the wind players had to travel elsewhere, Embryo was already a guest at the castle of Castello di Castelar, where an important flamenco festival was taking place. The main attraction there was the group Triana from Seville with singer and guitarist Manuel Molina, no stranger to Embryo. Due to the big event where Embryo played the whole final day, there was little time for many sessions, but plans for future projects were made with Manuel.
When we arrived in Tangier, we had a spontaneous meeting with the Gnawa Express, who didn't want Embryo to travel on to Casablanca for the time being, but the next gigs were scheduled there.
We continued on to Essaouira after an interesting meeting with Omar Sayed, the lead singer of the famous group Naziriouane. There we jammed with local musicians from the gnawa scene and of course met our grandmaster Mahmoud Gania, with whom we had been traveling in '99.
Unfortunately, time passed so quickly that there was just enough time for a wonderful session with one of the most famous oud players: Said Chraibi. The performance at the 1st Tangier Jazz Festival on the last day on African soil brought another exciting encounter with the Andalusian violinist Mohammed Bachia.
In Granada, we were spontaneously invited to perform at the “Dar Ziryab”, which is a center of Arab-Andalusian culture. The group Al Tarab comes from there and musicians from this ensemble, such as the violinist Abdel Hamid Ajbar, were happy to play with us.
Christian Burchard, September 2000
Originally Posted to Klaus Unland's Embryo Page in 2001, Translated 2024/10/16