Two Rivers is jazz master Amir ElSaffar's debut album as a leader; he is a well-seasoned musician in both the jazz world and the classical one. He has performed as a member of pianist Vijay Iyer's celebrated group, and with Cecil Taylor's, he has also played on the front line with the brilliant — if less widely known — alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa's group (who returns the favor here). But ElSaffar is also a gifted and well-studied classical musician who has worked with conductor Daniel Barenboim, among others. None of this prepares the listener for Two Rivers. ElSaffar is an American-born artist: his father is a native Iraqi; his mother an American. After studying jazz and classical music and playing with numerous ensembles in the United States and Europe, ElSaffar went to Iraq to study maqam music. Maqam is the urban classical vocal tradition in Iraq. According to the extensive notation on ElSaffar's website, it is found in "...Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk, and Basra, the maqam repertoire draws upon musical styles of the many populations in Iraq, such as the Bedouins, rural Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen, as well as neighboring Persians, Turks...." It has two distinct flavors, a more spiritual tenet for Qur'anic recitation, and a more secular one, performed in coffeehouses, gyms, and even by street vendors advertising their wares. The term for the singer or reciter is quarri or in the plural, qurra', which denotes its essentially spiritual nature. It is a complex music; a modal