{"product_id":"toufic-farroukh_cinema-beyrouth_2012_disco-virgin-music-group","title":"Cinema beyrouth","description":"In the journey of certain musicians, there are pivotal works that are like appointments set by destiny at the crossroads of art and life, of aesthetic adventure and human adventure. These works, which summon both the spirit of invention and the memory of their author, are the fruits of slow maturation. Such is Cinéma Beyrouth, the fifth album of the Franco-Lebanese saxophonist and composer Toufic Farroukh, which is a true intimate conversation between a man and his hometown, magnified by the use of subtly thought-out and weighed instrumentation: brass quartet (soprano or tenor saxophones, trumpet, trombone, sousaphone or tuba), piano, and drums. In Toufic Farroukh's gaze, Beirut thus appears under the guise of a \"tragic enigma.\" It also portrays a kind of diva that is both generous and demanding, ready to welcome its former children only to better vampirize, bully, or even reject them. \"It's a city that can take everything from you and give you nothing. The title of the album should be understood like in the expression 'to make one's cinema.' This record also tells the story of Beirut and its whims, its confusion, this city where you find everything: chaos, religion, war, business. This Beirut that at the age of 10 I dreamed of as a magnificent and magical place is no more. What I say here is not nostalgia, but simply memory.\" This memory, Toufic Farroukh has notably been led to reactivate by composing music for four films between 2000 and 2010, all of which had Beirut as their stage. From this scattered and unpublished material on record, the saxophonist has drawn five of the thirteen tracks from Cinéma Beyrouth, which he transcribed and adapted for brass quartet, including the diptych Side Story\/Storyboard. He added two compositions for dance (Blue Tango and Belle et Zébuth), two unpublished themes (Summer Run and A Wonderful Afternoon with Zena-Laure), and a three-part piece specially designed for the occasion (The Red Boy). After the plenteous ensembles, bold fusions, and convoluted constructions of his two previous albums, Drab Zeen and Tootya, Toufic Farroukh has found the magic formula that allows him to distill his art: he accesses the very essence of this wonderfully impure musical language that is his, in which the aromas of jazz, Arabic music, classical harmony, or contemporary music combine. In this way, this record is also an elegant way to put an end to the overused label of \"oriental jazz\" that has too often stuck to its author. Beyond genres and categories, Cinéma Beyrouth reaches here a bare and secret truth that is as much that of its author as of its subject. The bare and secret truth of a city and a life finally reunited and intertwined.","brand":"Toufic Farroukh","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57833020883288,"sku":null,"price":23443810.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/vinyles.com\/en-us\/products\/toufic-farroukh_cinema-beyrouth_2012_disco-virgin-music-group","provider":"Vinyles.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}