Blending Arabic maqam with jazz-inflected improvisation, ElSaffar's new quartet — joined by Tania Giannouli, Ole Mathisen, and Tomas Fujiwara — delivers an intense and expressive live performance whose spontaneous, newly composed material unfolds with lyrical depth, microtonal color, and dynamic interplay, captured at Berlin's Pierre Boulez Saal with additional alternate takes.

NY based Iraqi-American trumpeter ElSaffar in an emotionally charged work that invokes ancient Iraqi musical traditions and frames them in a modern jazz setting.