Karim Ziad

Born in 1966 in Algeria and raised in Algiers, Karim Ziad has built a career at the crossroads of jazz, Maghreb music and fusion. Trained as a drummer, he also plays percussion, guitar and gumbri, and sings — working in an approach where North African rhythms converse with jazz, raï, chaâbi, gnawa traditions, Bedouin songs, French chanson and certain hues of Egyptian film music. Settling in Paris at age 20, he quickly integrated into the world and fusion scenes and collaborated notably with Cheb Mami and Nguyên Lê. In the late 1990s Joe Zawinul brought him into the Zawinul Syndicate, which positioned Karim Ziad on an international circuit between electric jazz and contemporary crossovers. He has also participated in projects with the WDR Big Band, notably around Jazz al’Arab’, and in Torsten de Winkel’s The Art of Uncertainty with Gwilym Simcock, Rhani Krija and Kai Eckhardt. His discography under his own name includes Ifrikya (2001), Chabiba (2004), Dawi (2007) and Jdid (2012). He is also the musical director of the Gnawa Festival in Essaouira.