Yazz Ahmed (born 1983) is a
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
-
Bahraini trumpeter, flugelhornist and composer. Her music mixes
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
and Western influences.
She has worked with
Toshiko Akiyoshi
is a Japanese–American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader.
Akiyoshi received fourteen Grammy Award nominations and was the first woman to win Best Arranger and Composer awards in '' Down Beat'' magazine's annual Readers' Poll. ...
,
Rufus Reid,
John Zorn,
Ash Walker
Ash Walker is a London-based musician, multi-instrumentalist and DJ, whose music spans a diverse range of genres, such as jazz, blues, soul, funk, reggae, dub, trip hop, acid jazz, and electronica, among others. He has released four studio alb ...
, the London Jazz Orchestra, and also recorded and performed with
Radiohead, Lee Perry, ABC,
Swing Out Sister,
Joan as Police Woman
Joan Wasser (born July 26, 1970) is an American musician, singer-songwriter and producer who releases music as Joan As Police Woman. She began her career playing violin with the Dambuilders and played with Black Beetle, Antony and the Johnsons, a ...
, Tarek Yamani and Amel Zen, and the band
These New Puritans
These New Puritans are an English music group/band from Southend-on-Sea, England. It consists mainly of Jack Barnett (principal songwriter, vocalist, producer, multi-instrumentalist) and his twin brother George Barnett (drums, electronics, prod ...
.
Career
Born in London to a British mother and a Bahraini father, Ahmed spent her childhood in
Bahrain
Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...
before returning to London at the age of nine.
She started playing the trumpet at an early age, encouraged by her maternal grandfather Terry Brown, a jazz trumpet player.
She completed a master's degree from the
Guildhall School of Music and Drama
The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a conservatoire and drama school located in the City of London, United Kingdom. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz ...
in London.
Her ''Alhaan Al Siduri'' was a suite written with the support of Birmingham Jazzlines.
She was then commissioned by ''Tomorrow's Warriors'', with support from the Women Make Music Foundation, to write a suite about "''Powerful and Inspirational Women''".
In 2017, her album ''La Saboteuse'' earned her international acclaim. It was named ''Jazz Album of the Year'' by
The Wire
''The Wire'' is an American crime drama television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The Wire'' premiered on June 2 ...
, and ranked 18th in
Bandcamp
Bandcamp is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with headquarters in Oakland, California, US. On March 2, 2022, Bandcamp ...
's Top 100 Albums (all genres). Previously, during her year as a composer at the LSO Soundhub, she had a quarter-tone flugelhorn specially made, allowing her to use scales specific to Arabic music.
Continuing her explorations of space, Ahmed was commissioned by the
Open University
The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...
to write a piece inspired by the moon, which was performed at ''Moon Night'' in December 2018.
Ahmed released her third album, ''Polyhymnia'', in 2019. Named after the
Greek muse of music, poetry and dance, a character whom Ahmed describes as "''a goddess for the arts''", it is a six-movement suite devoted to "six women of exceptional qualities, role models with whom
hefelt a strong bond":
Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "th ...
,
Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai ( ur, , , pronunciation: ; born 12 July 1997), is a Pakistani female education activist and the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Awarded when she was 17, she is the world's youngest Nobel Prize laureate, and the second P ...
,
Ruby Bridges
Ruby Nell Bridges Hall (born September 8, 1954) is an American civil rights activist. She was the first African-American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegreg ...
,
Haaifa Al-Mansour,
Barbara Thompson and
the Suffragettes. Since it was first created in 2015, the project has grown, Yazz Ahmed adding new elements and expanding the group of collaborators. The recordings took place in UK and Europe over a three-year period from 2016 to 2019.
Discography
* ''Finding My Way Home'' (Suntara, 2011)
* ''La Saboteuse'' (Naim, 2017)
* ''Polyhymnia'' (Ropeadope, 2019)
References
External links
Official websiteAll Music
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ahmed, Yazz
1983 births
Living people
21st-century trumpeters
Jazz flugelhornists
Jazz trumpeters