Jay, Miles & Haber, Charbel

Jazz | Lebanon + United States

Miles Jay began playing the electric bass at an early age, and picked up the double bass in high school. Immediately after graduating in 2006, he moved to Cairo to broaden his experience in Egyptian music traditions. In Cairo Miles co-founded, co-produced and recorded 2 unique musical ensembles called Bakash and Masar.
Miles’ strong musical foundation in Jazz and Classical music, combined with his extensive performance experience in the musical traditions of the Middle East, have made him one of the most uniquely qualified double bassists in the World Music scene today. His performance experience has taken him around the world, from Cairo to Oslo, Dubai to Dakar, Carnegie Hall to the Kennedy Center, with performance credits including Youssou N'Dour (Senegal), Fathy Salama (Egypt), Naseer Shama (Iraq), the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, Ross Daly (Greece), Azzam Ali (Iran), and Omar Faruk Tekbilek (Turkey).

Lebanese-born Charbel Haber is a self-taught guitar player and composer. He is one of the most active and iconic figures in today’s Lebanese alternative music scene, and feels perfectly at ease operating in a wide range of musical settings. In 1998, he co-founded Lebanese post-punk group Scrambled Eggs, with whom he has recorded three full-length albums of scorching noise-rock, to great critical acclaim. Haber is also a full-fledged member of Beirut’s growing Improv community, and joined the MILL (the association for Free Improvised Music in Lebanon) in 2002. His involvement with MILL has seen him performing with the likes of the Moukhtabar big ensemble, the Grendizer Trio free improv collective, as well as free improv trio BAO. Haber launched his own experimental label, Those Kids Must Choke, in 2004. He has collaborated with musicians as diverse as Michael Zerang, Gene Coleman, Jean Pallandre, Mats Gustafsson, Annette Krebs, Mazen Kerbaj, Stephane Rives and David Stackenas…