Capacity to Love

What do you do when you’ve performed from atop the Eiffel Tower, sold out such prestigious venues as the Barbican and the Kennedy Center and won fawning critical acclaim for your catalogue of 16 albums? You call up the likes of Hollywood icon Sharon Stone, soul-jazz crooner Gregory Porter and hip-hop legends De La Soul, lean into disco, rap and rock and go mainstream. French-Lebanese trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf has long been a jazz adventurer, a polymath whose four-valve Middle Eastern modes lend themselves to silvery segues and labyrinthine exploration. But for this 17th recording, the follow-up to Queen of Sheba, a suite featuring a classical orchestra, West African percussionists and Angélique Kidjo, Maalouf commands the spotlight in ways political (race and migration are themes) and unashamedly popular.

Opening with Charlie Chaplin's seminal anti-fascist speech from The Great Dictator (‘the way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way,’) and finishing with Stone's scorching spoken-word piece ‘Our Flag’, this is music full of positivity. Paris-based Brazilian diva Flavia Coelho fires the Latin wig-out ‘El Mundo’; Cuban groove-meister Cimafunk joins New Orleans’ Tank & the Bangas on the vibing ‘Todo Colores’. Many of these hook-laden cuts should get mainstream radio play, which, for now, is Maalouf's intention.