There are worse ways to spend a Tuesday night than listening to Ibrahim Maalouf fill the Théâtre Royal de Rabat with trumpets.
The French-Lebanese musician performs in Rabat tonight, September 22, bringing his distinctive mix of jazz, Arabic music, rock, classical influences and improvisation to one of Morocco’s most striking new cultural venues.
Calling Maalouf simply a “jazz musician” has always felt slightly incomplete.
A huge part of his sound comes from the quarter-tone trumpet, an instrument developed by his father, trumpeter Nassim Maalouf, which allows him to play notes used in Arabic musical scales that a conventional trumpet cannot easily reproduce.
That has helped Maalouf build a musical language that can move between Beirut, Paris and the jazz world without sounding like it fully belongs to any one of them.
It also explains why his concerts tend to attract people who don’t necessarily spend their weekends discussing jazz records.
His music can be technical without feeling like homework.
Tonight’s performance also continues an interesting chapter for Rabat itself.
Since opening, the Théâtre Royal has increasingly given the capital a venue capable of hosting large international productions alongside Moroccan and Arab artists. Designed by the late Zaha Hadid, the building has become almost as recognizable online as some of the performances happening inside it.
For younger audiences, that matters.
Morocco’s cultural calendar is often discussed as though everything interesting happens during a handful of major festivals. But concerts like this are another reminder that there is increasingly something happening between those big dates too.
So yes, it’s Tuesday.
But Rabat has plans.
