Samai Nahawand - Jamil Bashir

Jamil Bashir (1920 – 24/9/1977) was a virtuoso Iraqi player and composer who left a fundamental mark in the development of Oud playing techniques. An early student of Serif Muhiddin Haydar at the Baghdad Institute of Fine Arts, Jamil Bashir applied his extraordinary skills to the traditional Middle-Eastern repertoire, opening the path for a new generation of Oud players.

He wrote several works and exercises, collected in his 6-years Oud study method, still very much in use. In this Samai Nahawand, composed in 1957 and modeled upon Mesut Cemil Bey's Samai Nihavent, Jamil Bashir ventures in a non-traditional approach to the Samai form. Fast passages and arpeggios deceive the typical 10/8 rhythmic accents, while the 4th movement features an uncommon 7/8 meter.

It is one of his most technically challenging compositions, please excuse the various small mistakes of this home recording.