Kerbaj, Mazen

 

 

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Mazen Kerbaj was born - together with the Lebanese civil war - in 1975 in Beirut and lived there since. His main activities are comics, painting and music. In 1999, he published his first book Djoudjou... and the others , but he has to wait until march 2000 to release some of his more personal works in his Journal 1999 (a dairy in comics' format). He self-published eight other books and many short stories since. It is also in 2000 that he plays for the first time in concert, in the Strike's pub in Beirut. This concert, a duo with Lebanese sax player Christine Sehnaoui, is probably the first improvised music concert in the Middle East. In 2001, together with guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui , he creates the MILL association that curates since IRTIJAL an annual international festival for free music in Beirut as well as various concerts and events (IRTIJAL saw over the years some great improvisers like Fred Van Hove, Johannes Bauer, Le Qu�n Ninh, Franz Hautzinger...). In august 2002, together with Sharif Sehnaoui and double bass player Raed Yassin e he recorded the album A published by La CD-Th�que, Beirut. After meeting Franz Hautzinger by chance in Lebanon in February 2003, they played in duo in Beirut and in Paris and in trio with Japanese laptop player Taku Unami at the IRTIJAL 2003 festival. Then they were joined by Sharif Sehnaoui and Helge Hinteregger to form Oriental Space quartet that played in Nickelsdorf, Berlin, Vienna and Klagenfurt. A recording of this group is in preparation and should be released before end 2004. Between 2000 and 2004, Mazen Kerbaj played in solo and various groups in a lot of venues in Lebanon, Damascus, Paris, Bordeaux, Vienna, Berlin, New York, Boston, Chicago. Regular and occasional partners includes: Sharif Sehnaoui , Christine Sehnaoui, Raed Yassine, Charbel Haber, Franz Hautzinger , Helge Hinteregger, Le Quan Ninh, Bertrand Denzler, St�phane Rives, Edward Perraud, Taku Unami, Guillermo Gregorio, Michael Zerang, Fred Lonberg-Holmes, Mike Bullock, Jack Wright, Vic Rawlings, Ingar Zach, Gene Coleman, Toshimaru Nakamura... 1