Mahmud Salah

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Mahmud Salah (azerbaijan. Mәxmud Sәlәx) (*1960) is an Azerbaijani daf player and mugham master.

He origins from the family of Japhar Jabbarly, a great Azerbaijani play writer, one of the founders of Azerbaijan Soviet theatre and cinema whose name was given to the Azerbaijan State Cinema Studio “Azerbaijanfilm”.

Mahmud Salah started his professional activity at the age of sixteen performing with the ensemble of national musical instruments of the Azerbaijan State TV and Radio Company. Since 1990 he has been a soloist daf performer in the orchestra of Azerbaijani national musical instruments, and since 1991 he has been working at the Azerbaijan State Opera and Ballet Theatre.

Between 1989 and 2005 he initiated and founded a few mugham ensembles - trio “Buta” with daf, kamancha, and tar (1989), trio “Ghadim Sharq” (2000), and an instrumental quartet “Ghadim Sharq Roubaii” (2003) with daf, tar, qanun, and kamancha. Since 1998 a tar player Elman Sadiqov has become a permanent member of all mugham ensembles founded by Mahmud Salah. These two talented musicians now constitute the core of the group “Ghadim Sharq”. They attract different khanendes (traditional singers) for their public performance. This flexibility reflects common practice of mugham performance, rooted in old tradition.

Mahmud Salah works also at the Azerbaijan National Conservatoire and at the Azerbaijan State Institute of Arts where he teaches daf performing to traditional singers (khanendes). The names of his former students (Melek-khanim Ayyubova, Simara Imanova, Nazaket Taymurova, Ayqun Bayramova, Mansoum Ibrahimov and others) are widely known now to both Azerbaijani and foreign audience.

As a performer, Mahmud Salah is considered the best daf (ghaval) player in Azerbaijan. His name is mentioned in many books on Azerbaijan national musical instruments written by local and foreign authors. Professor of the Northwestern University (Illinois, USA) Inna Naroditskaya in her book “Songs from the Land of Fire” (2003) dedicated to Azerbaijani traditional musical culture expresses her gratitude to Mahmud Salah “for his patience and enthusiasm in teaching me to play the ghaval in 2002”. His daf performance is placed on the compact disk (sound track 2) appendixes to her book.

Mahmud Salah performed with such renown Azerbaijani traditional musicians, as a famous khanende (traditional singer), UNESCO prize winner Alim Qasimov, khanendes Janali Akperov, Sakine Ismailova, professors and assistant professors of Azerbaijan National Conservatoire, tar performers Ramiz Quliyev, Mohlat Muslimov, Malik Mansurov, kamancha performers Shafiga Eyvazova, Fahraddin Dadashev, a garmon player, a laureate of the 36th annual Smithsonian “Folklife” festival of 2002, Aydin Aliyev, and with many others. In 1987 he performed with Alim Qasimov at the International Festival in Samarqand where their group was awarded the first prize.

In ensemble with excellent Azerbaijani instrumentalists Mohlat Muslimov (tar), Ramiz Quliyev (tar), Fahraddin Dadashev, Shafiga Eyvazova (kamancha) and khanendes, such as Aghakhan Abdullayev, Janali Akberov, Melek khanim Ayyubova, Qandab Quliyeva, his performance was recorded on the series of compact disks “Anthology of Azerbaijani Traditional Music” released in France in the 90-ies.

In 1997 in France Buda Musique released a CD with Malik Mansurov and Mahmud Salah's performance ‘Azerbaidjan: Le Tar de Malik Mansurov’, Musique du Monde, 1997, CD 92696-2, BUDA Musique, Paris, France and a CD with Aydin Aliyev and Mahmud Salah's recordings. [‘Azerbaidjan: Le Garmon de Aydin Aliev’, Musique du Monde, 1997, CD 92701-2, BUDA Musique, Paris, France]. Four of his latest CDs were released by two Turkish companies – two by RAKS (2003) with khanende Sakine Ismailova and two more by the studio “Boyuk Shahinler” (2005), one with his solo performance. Numerous of his CDs were released by local Azerbaijani studios.

Mahmud Salah is widely known also as a tar reformer and a connoisseur of old mugham repertoire. The tar he reformed in the 90-ies since 1998 has sounded publicly; it has already got its own place in history of Azerbaijani tar construction and performing practice. A few documentaries of this new tar were taken by different local and foreign TV channels, for instance, by Turkish TRT-2 in 2002, by the “Leader” Azerbaijani private channel in 2004, and by the Azerbaijan State TV & Radio company in 2005. This tar is mentioned in “Explanatory Dictionary of Azerbaijan musical instruments” compiled by A. Najafzade (Baku, 2003). This tar (accompanied by M. Salah's daf performance) sounded at the stage of the international music festival “Sharq taronalari” held under the auspice of UNESCO in Samarqand in 2005.

As a composer, Mahmud Salah is less known among the general public because he composes music in the traditional and folk musical genres (tasnifs, rangs, daramads, dances), and, according to mugham tradition, this creativity usually stays anonymous among traditional musicians and public. However, all the mugham compositions arranged by Mahmud Salah usually include his own pieces or rhythmical melodic episodes within canonized mugham improvisations.