Kamal Musallam

A personal story: Since I Shifted careers from Architecture to Music in October 1998, I formed many bands in several grounds: France, Jordan, Lebanon and Dubai. Having introduced Jazz properly in Jordan between 2000-2002, I invited many local musicians such as Tamer Khalil, Rizgar Altimary, Abed Faqir, Majdi Qamhieh, and Omar Faqir to share the stage with me in every new music venue that opened during that time. I moved to Dubai in 2002 and founded 4 main Arabic Fusion bands since then: Kamal Musallam Trio, Kamal Musallam Group, Lulu Project and lately EastMania featuring Billy Cobham, Kai Eckhardt, Israel Varela, Rasha Rizk, Dwiki Dharmawan and Nasser Salameh. I was born in Kuwait on June 8, 1970, and I have been expressing myself through music and painting since the age of 3, encouraged by my parents for arts, I started out playing the piano then the accordion until I picked up the guitar when I was 9 - I was jealous of my cousin Charlie! Despite exploring for long time my other interests for art, design and architecture, pursuing post graduate studies in France and Jordan, I soon realised my true passion was in music. It was spurred on by four years in France attending festivals and concerts, while during my mid-20s, I discovered the likes of Miles Davis, Pat Metheny, George Benson, Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin, through pirated cassettes - the only audio resource available to me then. I developed my skills playing the guitar and oud, and began to fuse together all the influences that inspired me - mainly Rock, Jazz, Latin and Arabic music. The release of my first album in 2003, called On a Jordan River's Side, was highly acclaimed and appreciated on an international scale as well as by my guitar idol and friend Pat Metheny. It was released under my own label K&G (registered in 2001). In 2006 I set up the Dubai-based "Kamal Musallam Trio" with Rony Afif on drums and Elie Afif on bass. And then came the "Kamal Musallam Group" joined by Rami Lakkis on multi instruments, Khaled Yassine on percussions, and Dasha Tykhonova on flute. With this group I recorded 2 more albums: "Out Of My City" and "Lulu", featuring Sokoor Al Magabeel and Abri. The trio disbanded in 2009, then reformed with Israel Varela on Drums, and Daniele Cappucci on bass, while the group kept changing its members depending on the different projects. I have joined stages along with several international artists such as Bobby McFerrin, Billy Cobham, Kai Eckhardt, Anne Ducros, Jorge Pardo, Stanley Jordan, David Reinhardt, Ada Rovatti an Randy Brecker, Mounir Troudi, among others.. I am endorsed by IBANEZ (Japan), GODIN (Canada), and RODE MICS (Australia), and I play Faruk Turniz ouds. I have also been working very closely with Ibanez guitars, developing signature models, and those were released late 2010 as "The Oriental Series" http://www.ibanez.co.jp/oriental To read more please visit http://www.kamalmusallam.com Arabic Fusion Guitarist, with 5 albums (2 official GRAMMY selections), signature Oriental guitars by Ibanez, and EastMania (a collaboration with Billy Cobham)...