Dhafar Youssef

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Dhafar Youssef, born Teboulba, Tunisia in 1967 is a Tunisian Jazz and oud musician.

Growing up in the Tunisian port town of Teboulba, Youssef always had a special penchant for jazz and began playing the oud at a very young age. However the jazz scene in Tunisia would never give him the freedom to explore that particular path, so he left for Vienna aged 18 without a dinar to his name. He then took to travelling to Barcelona, Berlin, New York, Dakar and back again to Vienna, meeting, playing and collaborating with other world musicians. A debut release 'Malak' on the Enja label in 1999 sowed the seeds of an international reputation and Youssef moved permanently to the Barbès district of Paris.

Youssef developed some perennial musical partnerships, notably with the Sardinian trumpeter Paolo Fresu and the Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset. Youssef has collaborated with a number of other Scandinavian musicians playing in Norway and Sweden which is widely regarded as one of the most dynamic avant-garde jazz scenes in the world.

Youssef has also performed with Uri Caine, Jon Hassell, Markus Stockhausen, Nguyên Lê and the Cuban pianist Omar Sosa, to name but a few. In 2001 he recorded the 'Electric Sufi' CD with the ex-Sugar Hill Gang and Tackhead ,rhythm section of Will Calhoun and Doug Wimbush and followed it up recently with 'Digital Prophecy', another multi-layered jazz ensemble.