Atlas Soul

ong strangers were joining them. If September 11 created an environment unfriendly to Arabic and North African culture, nobody told these people. What hits hardest about Atlas Soul’s sound is the natural funk of North African music and also powerful vocals, which span fluid, passionate Gnawa melodies and husky rai hooks. There is great wisdom in a world-music outfit that embraces divergent genres (but not so many that the sound loses its identity). At Matt Murphy’s, Atlas Soul finished the first set with a 20-minute rendition of Pardo’s homage to the Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti. Pardo’s French-accented vocal sounded more like Satchmo than Fela, but the song kicks, and as they worked it through dumbek-driven percussion breakdowns, extended solos, and a chanting passage that got the whole bar calling out Fela’s name (whether or not they knew who he was), his venerable Afrobeat morphed into rhythms and melodies of North Africa and the Middle East and made sense in a whole new way. Atlas Soul makes worlds collide — and party -
The Boston Globe
April 27, 2012 By Siddhartha Mitter

Atlas Soul blend North African music, primarily the raï and shaabi styles, with jazz, reggae, and more. Chicago-raised Regie Gibson, a recent addition, brings a hip-hop element, rapping in poetry-slam style over crisp funk grooves. It’s an eclectic crew, mixing immigrants and locals — trombonist Jon Simmons and guitarist Pericles (Perry) Bakalos are Boston guys — with songs in Arabic, French, and English, though snippets of Hebrew and Italian also creep in. This makes for a wacky, polyglot family feel, much in evidence when a photo shoot with seven members (drummer Nadjim Kebir was on family business in Algeria) turns into a brunch and jam session at Pardo’s home, with his wife, Sarah, their adult daughter Maya, sound engineer Graham Tobias, a dog and a cat all in attendance.

“This is my indirect family,” says Pardo, surveying the scene. “I’ve played with many different bands but this is my passion, this group is my baby.”

Pardo’s personal history reflects some of the strands in Atlas Soul’s cultural explorations. A “wandering Jew,” as he describes himself, from a French Sephardic family with roots in Greece and Algeria, he studied music in a French conservatory. He then decamped to Japan to study Zen and karate, but decided music was the stronger calling. Along the way he bought land in Israel and lived there a while, before putting down roots in Boston. Boujemaa Razgui, who has been with Atlas Soul from the beginning, is another nomad who settled here. A native of Marrakech, he left for Spain in 1985, then immigrated to Canada before getting married and moving to Boston in 2000. A talented multi-instrumentalist, Razgui plays percussion, violin, and the flute called ney in Atlas Soul, and performs in other groups around the area. “I play all kinds of music, Arabic, traditional, but what we do with Jacques is African soul,” he says. “All these guys put together, it sounds great.”

Gibson, meanwhile, brings an American flavor and a way of communicating with the audience that Pardo says he especially appreciates. Gibson returns the compliment. “The thrill of working in a different kind of rhythm that I grew up with is a great challenge,” he says. “These guys play music that has that funky North African feel. It harks back to a very ancient music but it has a modern sensibility, and that mixture is a big pull for me.”


Atlas Soul’s disparate influences are on display in their new songs: those inclined to dissect will hear klezmer and raï on “Gypsy Wind,” shaabi on “Maleh,” or 1970s funk on “This Won’t Take Long.” There’s also a jazz standard, “Harlem Nocturne,” which Gibson sings in English and Italian while Pardo stretches out on a saxophone solo. With fresh material and band members who clearly thrive off each other’s company and ideas, one could say Atlas Soul is going strong. The band has a devoted local following, and Pardo says their music gets frequently downloaded by listeners in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, and France. At the same time, the group’s exposure has yet to match its talent. That’s partly in the nature of a band where everyone holds down a day job, and where the large number of players makes travel costly and cuts down individual shares of concert fees. Atlas Soul has played numerous out-of-town festivals and the occasional New York gig, but handling their own bookings hasn’t been easy. “It’s kind of nuts,” Pardo says. “We need a little bit of a real organization behind us.”

Still, Pardo is happy that Atlas Soul has been able to play its small part in bridging cultural differences, as evidenced by the mix of ages and origins he has seen over the years at their shows.

“It’s like when you open up a clock, and you see the little wheels that push the big wheels,” he says. “We are like one of the little wheels, we are doing our job toward the big wheel. The big wheel turns slowly, but we are there, and I feel good about that.”

SHORT BIO. Atlas Soul is an award-winning band based in Boston performing original music that celebrates and bridge Afro-Mediterranean melodies & grooves with Jazz and Funk thus naturally creating powerful genres of music one could describe as Maghrebian-Funk, Rock’n Raï and Chaâbi-Jazz. "Atlas Soul's blend of jazz, funk and Middle-Eastern/Arabic grooves is a fascinating sonic stew that will catch any listener's ear. This is their second appearance on our CD's compilation. We like'em, and you will too". Global Rhythm Magazine

Their powerful energetic & tight live performance is guaranty to move any audience and soon have every one sing along (often in a foreign language) up & dancing & sharing the positive energy! They have played countless venues such as The Montreal Jazz Festival, The Kennedy Center, The Festival International de Louisiane, The Houston International Festival, Musikfest, The FNX/Boston Phoenix Jazz Series at the Hatch Shell, The Festival International Nuits d’Afrique (Montreal) The Boston Globe Jazz Festival, The Steppin’Out Festival, MASS MoCA , Les Francofolies de Montreal, and many more…They have been booked on the same bill and shared the stage with international artists such as Lady Smith Black Mombazo, Thomas Mapfumo, Gigi, Alpha Blondy, Hassan Hakmoun, Baba Maal and Cheb Nasro to name just a few. Atlas Soul sings in French, Arabic, Hebrew and English. The lyrics speak of love, natural wonders, oppression, poverty, and of the melancholy of immigrants longing for their homelands. Their motto is world-music-for-world-peace. They have won or placed 3 times the Independent Music Awards, the Billboard World Song, The Unisong International, Global Rhythm Magazine, Just Plain Folks Music Awards, Boston Music Awards and many more.. They are currently in the studio recording their 6th album. Philosophically and politically, Atlas Soul hopes to inspire world peace through a fusion of music and culture that gets people to the dance floor. For more information and review copies of their latest "Gypsy Wind" CD, or to be on their mailing list please contact Jacques Pardo at 617 513 9675
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websites: http://www.atlas-soul.com