SoSaLa was invited for the first time by the Sixth New Orleans Middle East Film Festival at the Zeitgeist multi-disciplinary arts center to help raise money for the festival which will be held March 8 through 17, 2013. They played two nights there on December 7th and December 8th. And on December 11th they played in the Open Ears Music Series at The Blue Nile in the French Quarter.
Every show had a different line up. All shows were up to 90 minutes long and no rehearsals before the shows except for the first one. All shows were very well attended. All audiences had a good time. The quality of the music was quite good. Without having enough time to rehearse the interplay between the musicians was quite smooth.
The instrumentation of the Blue Nile show was unconventional, interesting and challenging: besides the regular sax, guitar and oud there were two basses (acoustic and electric), an electric cello and an electric trombone. The two basses played some poly rhythm. The electric trombone created some interesting heavy brass sounds. The electric cello was the female voice of the night. And the drums was the driving force of the ensemble. All of them were very supportive when the sax, guitar and oud soloed.
In between SoSaLa was interviewed by WTUL New Orleans 91.5 FM of Tulane University and played one improvised song live. Sohrab played the sax and Brian his oud. Brian had his own show with his Arabic jazz trio Sharq Attack at Zeitgeist December 9th. And December 10th Sohrab was invited to play his sax before the screening of the Iranian documentary film For Neda at Loyola University.
All this said SoSaLa made many new fans in New Orleans. Everybody involved was very happy about the results. SoSaLa is already invited to play there next year. Where and when t.b.a..
Live @ Zeitgeist, December 7, 2012
The members are: Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi (vocal and sax), Brian Prunka (guitar and oud) , Tarik Hassan (on electric bass) and Marcello Benetti (on drums) to join them.
Live @ Zeitgeist, December 8, 2012
The members are this time: Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi (vocal and sax), Brian Prunka (guitar and oud), Joe Cabral (electric bass) and Marcello Benetti (drums).
Live @ Blue Nile, December 11, 2012
The line up: Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi (sax and vocals), Brian Prunka (electric guitar and oud), Jeff Albert (trombone and electronics), Helen Gillet (cello and electronics), Tarik Hassan (accoustic bass), Joe Cabral (electric bass) and Marcello Benetti (drums).
Special thanx to: Rene Broussard (Zeitgeist), Jeff Albert (Open Ears Series organizer), WTUL FM’s Matt Rosen and to all the New Orleans musicians Helen, Marcello, Tarik and Joe.