Ozella Music 
Michel Sajrawy : Yathrib (IS,2006)****'
The Israeli multicultural group called Yathrib, under the leadership of crafted guitarist Sajrawy, -a Christan Arab himself-, have created a sophisticated JazzFusion with some Middle Eastern elements. Michel Sajrawy leads this band often as a guitarist like some great guitarists did before him (McLauglin) with elements that weren’t explored much by the early fusion guitarists back in the ‘70’s, at the time of their height of complexity. Michel’s exploration is not overdone, but with his group, shows a spontaneous rather improvised energy with some thought over compositional starting points with instrument changes and a few breaks, mostly calm in its evolutions (like “In Memory of Om Kalthoum”). He plays sometimes acoustic flamenco-like guitar and some jazzfusion electric guitar but of course we hear also oud (by Darwish Darwish). While bass (Valery Lipets) and drums (Ameen Atrash) have jazz origins, violin and rabab take care of Middle Eastern improvisations with a jazz touch. While “Flying Carpet” and “Four Commandments” has more fast improvising jazzfusion electric guitar, especially the last three tracks are most complete and rather unique blends. On “Father’ this is in a rather unique jazzfusion/rock way, while “Spiritual Osais” with sparse Middle Eastern percussion and the dry violin-like sound of the rabab has some bluesy eastern improvisation on electric guitar. “Karm Al-Sheikh", with slightly belly-dance-like touches, shows this blend again pretty well. A very original fusion album.
