SoHo (2014) is an album by Malek Jandali, featuring original compositions for piano, cello, and oud. Named after the vibrant SoHo district and Little Syria in New York City, the album reflects Jandali’s signature fusion of Middle Eastern melodies with Western classical influences, creating a deeply expressive and contemplative musical journey.

With intricate piano textures, soulful cello lines, and the rich timbre of the oud, SoHo blends tradition and innovation, drawing inspiration from Jandali’s cultural heritage while embracing a contemporary, cosmopolitan spirit. The album highlights his virtuosic technique and lyrical phrasing, offering listeners an intimate and evocative listening experience.

1.Grace Notes

Inspired by African-American writer Rita Dove’s (b.1952) fourth book of poems published in 1989. The title of the collections serves as an umbrella for the intimate concerns expressed in the forty-eight poems; in music, grace notes are those added to the basic melody, the embellishments that-if played or sung at the right moment with just the right touch – can break your heart. The poems indicate that Rita Dove possesses the quality that john Keats, the Romantic poet, called “negative capability” – the ability to feel as others feel. The forty-eight poems in Grace Notes are divided into five numbered sections of eleven, nine, seven, nine, and eleven poems, with one poem, “Summit Beach, 1921,” standing alone at the beginning of the volume.

Source: W. W. Norton &Company, Inc.

2- An Ocean Without Shores 

Sufi mystic, philosopher, poet, sage, Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi (1165 – 1240) is believed to have been one of the world’s great spiritual teachers. Ibn ‘Arabi was born in Murcia, Al-Andalus, and his writings had an immense impact throughout the Islamic world and beyond. The universal ideas underlying his thought are of immediate relevance today.

Ibn ‘Arabi wrote the K. ‘Anqā’ ‘mughrib, or The Fabulous Gryphon in his native Andalusia in 1200, less than two years before his decisive move to the East following his first pilgrimage to Mecca. The ‘Anqā’ is one of his earliest surviving works and is written in a highly symbolic language, of which the following translated selection is a typical example.

I marveled a tan Ocean without shore,

and at a Shore that did not have an ocean; 

And at a Morning Light without darkness,

and a ta Night that was without day break; And then a Sphere with no locality

known to either fool or learned scholar; 

And at an azure Dome raised over the earth,

circulating ’round its center – Compulsion; 

And at a rich Earth without o’er-arching vault 

And no specific location, the Secret concealed…

I courted a Secret which existence did not after;

For it was asked of me: “Has Thought enchanted you?” 

To which I replied: “have no power over that;

I counsel you: Be patient with it while you live.

But truly, if Thought becomes established

in my mind, the embers kindle into flame,

And everything is given up to fire

the like of which was never seen before!”

And it was said to me: “He does not pluck a flower

who calls himself with courtesy ‘Freeborn’.”

“He who woos the belle femme in her boudoir, 

love-beguiled,

will never deem the bridal-price too high!”

I gave her the dower and was given her inmarriage

throughout the night until the break of Dawn-

But other than Myself I did not find. – Rather,

That One whom I married- may his affair be known:

For added to the Sun’s measure of light

are the radiant New Moon and shining Stars; 

Like Time, dispraised- though the Prophet

(Blessings on him!)

had once declared of your Lord that He is Time.

Source: The Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society

3. The Water Wheel

Jalal ad-Dīn Rūmi (1207- 1273), the medieval Sufi mystic whom Time magazine calls “the most popular poet In America”, was a 13th-century Persian post, jurist, Islamic scholar and theologian. This poem bears a special significance to Malek Jandali, as it evokes the majestic water wheels, or norias, of Hama in Syria. Developed during the Byzantine era, these norias were built along the Orontes river and used to transport water to higher ground. Allegorically, Rūmi’s work aims to transport the reader to a higher ground of consciousness, awareness and unity with his fellow man.

The Big Red Book is a poetic masterpiece rom Rūmi and is considered one of the masterpieces of world literature.

To this day, Rūmi happens to be one of the bestselling poets in America. 

The Waterwheel

Stay together, friends. 

Don’t scatter and sleep.

Our friendship is made of being awake.

The waterwheel accepts water

and turns and gives it away, 

weeping.

That way it stays in the garden,

whereas another roundness rolls

through a dry riverbed looking

for what it thinks it wants.

Stay here, quivering with each moment

like a drop of mercy.

Source: The Big Red Book, translated from Persian by Coleman Barks, Harper Collins Publishers, 2011

4. Wilting Flowers 

One of the pioneers in rejuvenating contemporary Arabic poetry, Badr Shakir Al Sayyab (1926- 1964) is considered one of the first to attempt writing in the modern form of Arabic poems or what has come to beknown as the trochee poem, qasidet al-taf’ileh. He revolutionized all the elements of the poem and wrote highly involved political and social poetry, along with many personal poems. Wilted Flowers, Azhar thabila; his first poetry collection was published in 1947. In1949 he was arrested and imprisoned and was banned from teaching after his release.

The main theme of this composition is inspired by the well-known Arabic folk song. Ala Dalouna, the melody of which is in the Bayyati maqam.

5. SoHo 

This most diverse neighborhood in lower Manhattan has had a long history before becoming the heart and soul of New York City. Artists such as Phillip Glass, Twyla Tharp, Nam June Paik. Meredith Monk. Chuck Close. Frank Stella. and many others helped create the ideal situation to make SoHo the nexus of creative activity for a very magical time in the 1960s. SoHo came to represent the hip, Avant-garde scene, the grass roots of art and culture.

From the Silk Road to Little Syria to the cobblestone streets and cast-iron buildings of SoHo, this album is a continuation of Malek Jandali’s journey to explore both the traditional and modern American musical experiences.

Award-winning filmmaker Eric Haviv of Fugo Studios captured the essence and soul of this vibrant neighborhood in the SoHo music video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1G4Rrq_s74). Filmed on location, it highlights the rich, diverse and welcoming nature of this hub of art and culture.

6. At Home in Both Places

Jalal ad-Din Rūmi (1207 – 1273), the medieval Sufi mystic whom Time magazine calls “the most popular poet in America”, was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar and theologian. At Home in Both Places speaks to the deep attachment that one can have to two places at once. As both an American and a Syrian, Malek Jandali recognizes the connection that one may have to two homes, two lands that each hold a special place in one’s heart and life.

The Big Red Book is a poetic masterpiece from Rūmi and is considered one of the masterpieces of world literature. To this day, Rumi happens to be one of the bestselling poets in America.

I never get enough of laughing with you, 

this wild humor.

Thirsty and dry, I complain,

But everything is made of water.

Lonely, yet my head leans against your shirt.

My wounded hands are your hands.

Do something drastic.

You say, Come and sit in the innermost room.

Where you will be safe from the love-thief.

I reply, But I have tried to be the ring knocker

on your door.

So you will not have to be always letting me in and out.

You say, No. You stand on the threshold waiting, 

And you are herein the inner chamber too.

You are at home in both places.

I love the quietness of such an answer. 

Come to this table of quietness.

Source: The Big Red Book, translated from Persian by Coleman Barks, Harper Collins Publishers, 2011

6. The Sad Mother

Gabriela Mistral (1889 – 1957), a Chilean poet, diplomat, educator and feminist, was the first Latin American (and, so far, the only Ibero-American woman) to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, which she received in 1945 “for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world”.

The Sad Mother (La Madre Triste) tells the story of a mother experiencing the most painful loss one can imagine, the loss of a child, and how the hope and belief in her child’s happiness in the afterlife gives the mother strength to carry on and endure her loss.

The Sad Mother

Sleep, sleep, my beloved,

without worry, without fear,

although my soul does not sleep,

although I do not rest.

Sleep, sleep, and in the night

May your whispers be softer

than a leaf of grass,

or the silken fleece of lambs.

May my flesh slumber in you,

my worry, my trembling.

In you, may my eves close

And my heart sleep. 

8. Poem Eternal

Based on and inspired by the ancient Andalusian muwashah “Lamma bada yatathanna”, this piece is rich, complex and beautiful. The poem’s author is unknown, however the original melody is attributed to Sheikh Muhammad ‘Abd al-Rahīm al-Maslūb (1786 – 1895) and was composed to the nahawand maqām, a sub-maqām of the ‘ushshāg maqam.

Muwashah refers to a genre of poetry from Andalusia, Moorish Spain, generally dating to before 1492. A muwashah vocal work is composed using a complex rhythm, ranging from 2/4 to 48/4 and greater and follows the rules of muwashah poetry with respect to the number of lines, the length of the line, meter, and rhyme.

The Samaii rhythmic structure of the original composition is intricate and mesmerizing. It contains ten beats to the bar and calls for a specific beat pattern in the accompanying percussion. The graphic below shows how complex these ten beats are.

Lammā Bada Yatathanna (When She Begins to Sway)

Graceful she was when she arrived, beauty and glory stepped aside;

my beloved is mesmerizing,

and although I would sacrifice my soul for her,

is she willing to love me back?

She imprisoned me in a garden beyond mountains by the 

way she looks at me,

She seemed like a proud tree branch

that leans towards its roots after hearing love songs, and

achieving richness.

I am dazzled by my promises

and my confusions,

I have no one to ask for mercy,

but you, the queen of love.