'' Ali On Broadway '' KOJ / Melodie (1994)
Toufic Farroukh chose jazz as his field of predilection – a colorful jazz, with oriental accents and perfect reflection of his artistic journey rooted in a double culture and open to different contemporary artistic expressions, such as dance, theater or cinema.
In his own albums, he assumes, far from theories and concepts, his various influences and creates with a beautiful tranquility, a personal and authentic universe. In “ Ali on Broadway ”, recorded in 1993, oriental colors emerge far from the artificial mixtures that many World Fusion musicians cannot always resist.
« Ali Broadway, the other mix » CDM & Harmonia Mundi (2004),
is a saved or doubly saved album, so to speak, since the analog tapes were technically almost lost, and by managing to recover them and listening to them again one by one, Toufic Farroukh rediscovers them. The obvious then becomes obvious: Ali on Broadway must be mixed new, not only in better conditions, but also with a completely different ear.
What was still incongruous at the time, the musical encounter between West and East, is now part of our sound field. The fact remains that this meeting is not self-evident. Ali 's journey between these two worlds, these two cultures, brings the imaginary closer to the lived experience, confronting them, intermingling them, blurring the tracks, playing with them...a journey precisely, that is to say: a path to travel, a path that we no longer end up traveling!
Composed, arranged & produced by Toufic Farroukh
“LITTLE SECRETS” (1998)
Different, colorful, open to crossovers, Toufic Farroukh now draws the contours of a new territory in the planet sons. The proof, "Little Secrets", a contemporary fusion that offers a jazz with very refined oriental accents.
In his compostions, Toufic Farroukh shows the same eclecticism. « Little Secrets", published in 1998, uses both "classical" jazz instrumentation (saxophone, trombone, piano, ... etc) that the traditional instruments of the Near East (Oud, Req, Ney or Bouzouk) bring a depth and dimension that goes beyond the local touch of color.
Composed, arranged & produced by Toufic Farroukh
Toufic Farroukh: Tenor & Soprano Saxophone, Bouzouk & Percussion; Bassam Saba: Nay; Charbel Rouhana: Oud; David Venitucci: Accordion; Leandro Aconcha: Acoustic Piano; Serge Adam: Trumpet & flugelhorn; Daniel Casimir: Trombone; Jean Wellers: D. Bass & Acoustic guitar; Etienne Brachet : Drums ; Cécile Daroux: bass flute; Vincent Limousin: Vibraphone; Adel Chamss: Req; Sidney Thiam: Congas & udu.
Production: Toufic Farroukh & Radwan Hoteit
Drab Zeen (CDM / Harmonia Mundi 2002)
Toufic Farroukh pays tribute to his friend, the artist Joseph Sakre...
“All music is more or less kneaded from various backgrounds, this evidence, Drab Zeen not only fully takes it into account but he displays it openly. The framework is not concealed, quite the contrary, the traditional, the jazz and the electronic are in a way the earth, the clay and the silt from which Drab Zeen kneads . Only it is not a question here of mixing these three horizons, of melting them one into the other, but of establishing an encounter, of provoking it.
Drab Zeen does not however articulate in the conflict, there is like a fever of the encounter with all the risks that entails, a fever sought after, desired, truly laid bare. Thus, freedom has been granted to the different soloists, so that new colors emerge from which to draw, allowing to (re) push the primary structure of each piece even further. The line between improvisation and the musical theme is held. The improvisation becomes a theme, and the theme sounds like an improvisation. And it's like all this work of shadow and light on which Drab Zeen is also built. An instrument is put forward, another accompanies it just below, note after note, follows it exactly like its shadow. An imperceptible shift then takes place: while remaining a shadow, the shadow becomes a reflection. She adorns herself with the dress of light, while remaining shadow, we insist. We know what happened to those who lost their shadow”. Ghassan Salhab
Composed, arranged & produced by Toufic Farroukh
Bassam Saba – Ney; Antoine Khalifé – violin; Nabil Khalidi & Charbel Rouhana – Oud
Georgi Kornazov-Trombone; Yasmine Hamdan – Voice; Jean Wellers – D. Bass, viola & violin; J.M. Huré – El. Guitar; Ali Alkhatib – Riq; Toufic Farroukh – Saxophones, bouzouk, Synth & percussion
Production – Radwan Hoteit & Toufic Farroukh
TOOTYA O + music / Harmonia Mundi (2007)
"Jazz from unusual angles. This is what immediately comes to mind when listening to Tootya, the new album of Toufic Farroukh. The new album of the talented Franco-Lebanese saxophonist is resolutely in line with his predecessor, the innovative DrabZeen, released in 2002.
For Toufic Farroukh, the analogy with travel is a predominant aspect of Tootya. All the pieces are linked together, but sometimes they leave in opposite directions before finding each other. The soloists who accompany him, from Magic Malik to Ibrahim Maalouf through the two singers Rima Khcheich and Jeanne Added, capture a modern sound, intertwined with powerful rhythms, transmit an inner passion and a joy tinged with nostalgia. It is perhaps the instrumental pieces that give the best idea of Tootya's atmosphere. Of particular note is 'Radio City' with its wonderful parts of G's trombone. From J. Levitt's Masure and ney, 'Ashes', and the subtle accordion played by D.Venitucci, and Toufic Farroukh's Saxes, with his thrifty phrasing, a slightly melancholic sound and his solos that enrich an alloy of oriental jazz and particularly successful dance, Farroukh reaches here a poetry similar to that which he had demonstrated on his first album, Ali On Broadway. »
Composed, Arranged & Produced by Toufic Farroukh; Co-arranged by Leandro Aconcha
Production: Toufic Farroukh, Radwan Hoteit & Chill Island
“Cinema Beirut” CD enja / Harmonia mundi 2011
In the career of some musicians, there are pivotal works, which are like appointments set by fate at the crossroads of art and life, aesthetic adventure and human adventure. These works, which summon as much the spirit of invention as the memory of their author, are the fruits of a slow maturation; they bear in filigree the story of an experience, and the beautiful imprint of the time it took to live it and translate it into music. Such is Cinéma Beyrouth, the fifth album of the Franco-Lebanese saxophonist and composer Toufic Farroukh, which is much more than just a collection of pieces attached to each other. It is a real intimate conversation between a man and his hometown, magnified by the use of a subtly thought out and weighed instrumentation: brass quartet, piano and drums. A conversation interspersed with moments of tenderness and brilliance, moments of abandonment and lyrical impulses, which transcribes with remarkable clarity of tone the complexity of their common history.
The relationship between Toufic Farroukh and Beirut has been woven in a rather chaotic way. In 1984, the musician left the Lebanese capital to settle in Paris; subsequently, he maintained with her one of those paradoxical liaisons, both intense and distended, that expatriates know well. In the eyes of Toufic Farroukh, Beirut thus appears as a "tragic enigma". She also plays a kind of diva who is both generous and demanding, ready to welcome her former children to better vampirize them, rough them up, or even reject them. "It's a city that can take everything from you and give you nothing.... This record also tells Beirut and its whims, its confusion, this city where we find everything, chaos, religion, war, business... This Beirut that at the age of 10 I dreamed of as a beautiful and magical place is no longer ... »
A whole network of correspondences and hidden passages, of themes and variations, of melodies and rhythms, is thus woven within Cinema Beirut and gives it its deep organization, its internal cohesion. In the same way that sounds and vibrations can respond and harmonize in the heart of a city and forge its identity; in the same way that images, voices or perfumes can blend and echo in a man's memory, and ground his very being. Beyond genres and categories, Cinema Beirut achieves here a naked and secret truth that is as much that of its author as of its subject. Richard ROBERT
Composed, Arranged & produced by Toufic Farroukh; Co-arranged by Leandro Aconcha
Toufic FARROUKH, Saxophones; Leandro ACONCHA, Acoustic Piano; Sylvain Gontard & Nicolas Giraud, Trumpet; Daniel ZIMMERMANN, Trombone; Didier HAVET, sousaphone & Tuba; Luc ISENMANN, Drums.
''Invisible Cities'' Hot8 / The Other Cast (2017)
Architect of the imaginary
The music of Toufic Farroukh is transported by the art of conversation. A dialogue inhabited by dreams of another world, one where women and men would be able to live in the harmony of cities finally pacified. Faced with the saxophonist-composer, the city – its secrets, its beauty, its mysteries, its history – advances as the subject of a mesmerizing exchange.
To elaborate Invisible Cities, of which Toufic Farroukh signs compositions and arrangements, the one who can be described as a nomadic poet chose to close his eyes and dream of a city for all. This is of course a city that exists only in the hearts of those who still believe in the possibility of a serene life, where everyone can find their place. The title of the disc is borrowed from the homonymous novel by Italo Calvino in which Kublai Khan, emperor of the Tartars, is told about the cities visited during his travels by Marco Polo, cities "made of desires and fears", with secrets sometimes well hidden.
Among the cities that Italo Calvino describes, there is one that reflects the one that Toufic Farroukh imagines in his new record. It is Zobeid, whose origin is based on the dream made by men from different countries. They saw a running in the middle of the night and followed her, never finding her. She was just a dream. They then decided to build a city arranged in such a way that this "woman apparition" was unable to escape. It is said that Toufic Farroukh himself dreamed of a city of beauties and secrets. He is the architect of a city mixing multiple influences, which exudes heady perfumes, such as those of its dear Mediterranean. "A city whose rumors create a great daily soundtrack," to use the words of Toufic himself.
"Angela", inspired by a theme from Romanian folklore, evokes the movement of refugees towards Germany, which has opened its borders. The composition bears a woman's first name, Angela, as does Italo Calvino who similarly names some of his imaginary cities; “Serotina”, bears the same title as “Le cerisier d'automne” and pays homage to Georges Delerue , whose film soundtracks have today been elevated to the rank of classical music, like a timeless city; “Rio de Cairo” is the synthesis, far from any confusion, of two merging cultures: Egyptian and Brazilian; "VSA" is a fraternal hymn evoking the happiness of being in Ville-sur-Auzon , in the Vaucluse, surrounded by friends...
Toufic Farroukh, the inspiration of an open repertoire, lets his saxophones sing in unison with the other instruments, without ever trying to have the last word or even give in to the temptation of solitary exercise. We can never repeat it enough: if conversation is an art, Farroukh is its fervent and humble servant at the same time. Denis Desassis
Composed, Arranged & Produced by Toufic Farroukh; Co-arranged by Leandro Aconcha
Toufic Farroukh, soprano, alto and tenor saxophones; Leandro Aconcha, piano and Fender Rhodes Didier Ithursarry, accordion; Ahmad Al Khatib, oud; Frédéric Favarel, guitar; Marc Buronfosse, double bass; Luc Isenmann, drums; Bachar Khalifé, percussion; guest: Naima Yazbek, vocals.
Production: Toufic Farroukh & Radwan Hoteit.
« 8 Original Soundtracks » (Absilon2020)
"8 Original Soundtracks" is the surest way to understand the musical universe of Toufic Farroukh dedicated to cinema. Universe easily written for a large ensemble (Al Mahd), transposable to more organic for string quartet (Terra Incognita), or with a more relaxed form (Nour),, but still as precise and dynamic (Ladder to Damascus or A Man of Honor). A concentrate of melodies (Bonne à vendre or Histoire d'un Retour), minimalist aesthetic very cut (Falafel)...
"8 Original Soundtracks" a double album that gives very particular sounds and very different tones. The technical approach, the playing, the recording itself, is particularly sensitive to listening. Toufic Farroukh, favors a clear line as a resonance to the image that everyone will be able to see a link or not. As if distanced from itself, music takes us on intoxicating paths, both autonomous and perfectly articulated between them.
The cinema, said André Bazin , “substitutes for our gaze a world which agrees with our desires”…. And to our ears?!
STORY OF A RETURN (1994) a film by Jean Claude Codsi. TERRA INCONGNITA (2002) a film by Ghassan Salhab. GOOD FOR SALE (2006) a documentary film by Dima al Joundi. AL MAHD (2006) a film by Mohamad Malas. FALAFEL (2006) a film by Michel Kammoun. A MAN OF HONOUR (2010) a film by Jean Claude Codsi. LADDER TO DAMASCUS (2013) a film by Mohamad Malas. NOUR (2017) a film by Khalil Dreyfus Zaarour.
« Untamed Elegance« (Scale Art & Culture / Bacodistrib 2023)
“Meticulously and lovingly constructed, Untamed Elegance is a record which, not without modesty, reveals the discreet and persistent beauties of a great journey beyond time and fashion. »
"Toufic Farroukh's music is multiple... The act of creation always begins with a vibration under the influence of a melody that arises, to become very present, and which will naturally bring with it the rest of the composition. The melody, an essential starting point, born from lived experiences, encounters, books, films, enhanced by a great harmonic depth and by the colors of a rich orchestration. As many stories that this elegant music tells, we can hear the memory of a wedding (Think About It), a love song in a flamenco style (Caer), a nod to James Bond (Janis Bond), or a tribute to A.C. Jobim (No More Bossa), an evocation of Russian music (Sometimes I'm Happy), a Serbian folk dance (Silenus Dance) ... All these things that shape a musician's life, really. And in Toufic Farroukh, beyond the vicissitudes of our world, there is also the situation of his beloved Lebanon and the constant back and forth between times of war and times of peace – life wants to believe that it can be beautiful." Denis Desassis
Toufic Farroukh : Saxophones, Percussion, Leandro Aconcha : Piano, Keyboards, Jean-Luc Lehr : Electric Bass (except 3, 5, 7 and 8), Xavier Rogé : Drums, Sylvain Gontard : Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Paco Andreo : Trombone, Benachir Boukhatem : violin, Justina Zajancauskaite : violin, Lilla Peron : Viola, Sary Khalifé : Cello, Fanny Laignelot : Flute, piccolo, Julien Chabod : Clarinet. Alberto Garcia: Vocals (3), Nelson Veras: Acoustic Guitar (3, 11), Marc Buronfosse: Double Bass (3, 5, 7 & 8), Sophie Lascombes-Mayrand: Oboe, English Horn (1), Cédric Bonnet: Horn (1), Ali Khatib: Req, Bendir (2, 3, 5), Walid Baba Nasser: Darbouka, Bendir (2, 3, 5).