Munir Bashir

A master from the mode-based, raga-like Arabic Taqsim, Munir Bashir transformed the oud (Arabic lute) into a significant single instrument. His improvisations motivated evaluation to jazz’s most inventive players. Based on www.rootsworld.com, Bashir’s “improvisations (were) elegantly melodic. He (tended) to favour brief phrases and specific occasions remind me of the type of development one will dsicover in unaccompanied saxophone solos by Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell.” Descended from an extended line of music artists, Bashir was proven the basics from the Arab lute, by his dad, as a kid. He continuing his musical schooling on the Baghdad Institute of Music, which he inserted at age six. Bashir’s musical profession was well balanced by his encounters as an educator. Finding a doctorate in musicology in 1955, he started lecturing for the folk arts section of Budapest’s Academy of Sciences. He ultimately increased to directorial positions at the bigger Institute of Music in Baghdad as well as the Music Program of Iraqi Open public Radio. Previously unreleased recordings discovered by Bashir’s kids soon after his loss of life in Oct 1997 had been released as Raga Root base. Bashir’s musical legacy is certainly continuing by his boy, Omar.