The way some record labels looked at it back in the early Sixties, Ravi Shankar’s breakthrough into the rock-pop world meant that someone who played the oud might hit it big as well. That’s how John Berberian, master oud player, wound up making records for the Mainstream, Roulette, and Verve Forecast labels, the latter issuing Music and Gibran in 1968, with NYC deejay Rosko reciting Khalil Gibran’s poetry while Berberian and other fine purveyors of Armenian and Turkish music provided the background sounds. The producers for that album figured that the next step ought to be Middle Eastern Rock. Berberian loved the idea, and so John Berberian and the Rock East Ensemble was born. The record came out in 1969 and then the label, as so often happened, didn’t do much with it, and it vanished with its sounds almost unheard. Berberian went on to make numerous recordings of Armenian mujsic and is still a master of the oud, but the Rock East Ensemble was no more.
I heard it back then, though. I fished it out of a cut out
bin in a drugstore and, lover of middle Eastern-tinged music that I was and am,
went home and played it. I’d say it was a Middle Eastern, jazz, and rock album,
in that order. Guitarist Joe Beck brought his jazz and rock chops, while Berberian,
clarinetist Souren Baronian, and a clutch of other musicians brought their
inter-genre skills to achieve a fascinating mix of music that stayed with me
over the decades.
Now, thanks to the gang at Modern Harmonic, the fount of
many an obscure reissue, Middle Eastern Rock is available on CD and just
as tripped out. I highly recommend it as a true fusion record that repays repeated
listening.
Here are Tranquility and Iron Maiden:
