“Night Reign” – Arooj Aftab

Album: Night Reign

Artist: Arooj Aftab

Year: 2024

Genre: Folk Jazz

Grade: B+

On her 2024 breakthrough album Night Reign, Pakistani singer Arooj Aftab effortlessly combines the qawwali folk music of her homeland with Western jazz. The results are occasionally transcendent, as on the opening two tracks “Aey Nehin” and “Na Gul,” in which Aftab’s sonorous and soothing voice soars above a calming kaleidoscope of acoustic guitars and harps and piano and percussion — rhythmless yet endless.

Like most of Aftab’s music, Night Reign is a slow, meditative listen. It’s her first release where the pendulum fully swings toward the jazz side of her folk-jazz equation, and even though I prefer her earlier semi-classical Hindustani music (her minimal yet exotic 2014 debut, Bird Under Water, is an excellent encapsulation of her folk roots), the ruminative sketches of Night Reign are, if nothing else, extremely relaxing.

As a whole, the album proves that Aftab — with a talented ensemble of session musicians at her disposal — is one of the most notable musicians in the current jazz scene, and one whom is giving traditional Pakistani music a much deserved larger platform. Night Reign is a nice entry point into her discography, though for more exploratory sounds I’d recommend her previous releases.

NOTES & CHORDS

• Personally, I’m enamored by the qawwali-influenced tracks more than the bebop-influenced ones, which is why the opening two songs are my favorites.

• Qawwali is a style of Sufi devotional music based around long, sustained singing, similar to Hindustani ragas. Harmonium and tabla are traditional instruments, although Aftab also incorporates Western baroque instrumentation into the equation. Qawwali lyrics are often taken from Urdu poetry, and in the case of Night Reign, Aftab pulls from Mah Laqa Bai (an 18^th century Ghazal songstress) and Rumi (a 13^th century Sufi mystic).

• Stepping away from Pakistani folk music, however, Aftab becomes a true capital-J jazz musician by covering a standard (“Autumn Leaves”) and featuring Afro-Futurist spoken word poetry from Philadelphia artist Moor Mother (“Bolo Na”), though I’m not really a fan of the latter. It doesn’t fit with the rest of the album’s sonic palette and is quite jarring (i.e., pretentious).

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