Yacine Boulares’s Night in Tunisia

Habibi Festival • Oct 13 & 14, 2022

Night In Tunisia is a musical journey that leads from the shores of Carthage to the port of New Orleans via West Africa where the rhythms of African-American jazz were born. In this new creation, French-Tunisian composer and saxophonist Yacine Boulares brings together a supergroup of Tunisian artists across indigenous and contemporary musical styles for an energetic and celebratory exploration of the continuum of North African and African American music.

The creation is a re-imagination of the famous Dizzy Gillespie standard, Night in Tunisia, where Boulares invites us to go to the other side of the mirror towards an imaginary musical tale. In this tale, Dizzy would really have spent a night in Tunisia and would have been deeply imbued with its sounds and rhythms. In this project, “Night in Tunisia” is reunited with its native tongue and rhythms - the harmonies and melodies of Jazz, Soul and Funk music meet the rhythms of Mezwed, Stambeli, Chaabi, and Fazzani. Night in Tunisia is a poetic odyssey that celebrates life, the incandescent fury to dance, vibrate, and live to the rhythm of the music.

At the forefront of the stage singer Nessrine Jabeur shares the mic and her poetry with rapper Mehdi WMD who are joined by traditional Tunisian percussion, drums, bass, piano/keyboard, guitar, and loutar, and band leader Yacine Boulares on saxophones.