Antelias, Lebanon 1956 – Beirut, Lebanon 2025

I am yet to mourn the passing of the great Lebanese composer, lyricist, playwright, and political activist Ziad Rahbani (1956-2025).

For another, I knew Ziad personally, after we met in Beirut in 1998. We even enjoyed a four-hour productive jam session in his studio, thanks to Subhi Ben Khadra, Salah Salah and the late Hani Wadi’ Haddad (RIP).

We corresponded regularly after that, when emails were ‘a new thing’, and planned to do something together. But it was not meant to be, for no particular reason. It just did not happen.

The breaking point for me was Ziad’s blind support for Bashar Assad and the latter’s brutal oppression of the Syrian people.

Typical of so many on the Arab left, anyone who is against the US and Western hegemony must be ‘on our side’.

I even stopped listening to his exceptional music. Up to that moment, Ziad’s music was part of my upbringing, revolutionary fervour and hopes for a better Middle East, as it was to most Arabs of my age.

Not to mention his pioneering role in the introduction of Jazz to Arabic music. This, alone, is an achievement in its own right. I wouldn’t have been able to take forward my own work on bringing together Jazz and Arabic music were it not for Ziad’s work on what came to be known as ‘Oriental Jazz’.

Ziad’s passing last weekend at the age of 69, from incurable Cirrhosis (he loved his drink and had a tortured Bohemian lifestyle), caused ripples of shock across the Arab world.

I intend to write a proper obituary on Ziad, but with the on-going genocide in Gaza, I find myself unable to do so right now.

Instead, I will share with you some of his seminal work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXNlv_ys1bc

This is the overture of the famous play “Mais al-Reem” (1975), starring Ziad’s mother, none-other than the great Lebanese singer Fairuz.

The baseline in this exceptional piece and the syncopated piano riff were instantly recognisable each time Ziad played it live.

I will share later the original studio recording from the official soundtrack of the play. But this is a live recording, with Ziad playing the keyboard, from 2018 (I know neither the venue nor occasion of this particular performance).

The above aside, all I can offer right now is my loving condolences to his mother, another pivotal influence on my music and singing style. Fairuz had already buried another of her children, her daughter Layal in 1988 (aged 28).