“5 Million Pesos” is a monthly concert and radio broadcast series of young jazz in and from Austria – presented by Radiokulturhaus Vienna and the Ö1 jazz department. This month, Mehdi Chamma and his ensemble is the guest.
Mehdi Chamma
Concert: Thursday | Feb 20, 2025 | 20:00 (8 p.m.) | Studio 3
Broadcast: February 23, 2025 | 00:05 (midnight)
Mehdi Chamma has lived in Vienna since 2015, and in 2019 he founded his Mehdi Chamma Group, which sometimes consists of six and sometimes five musicians. Here, the Moroccan guitarist and singer combines the bass lute of traditional Gnawa music, North African grooves and melodies with rock, blues and jazz elements to create a powerful and surprising mix that can even include a quote from a Nirvana song.
In 2023, Chamma released the debut album “Layla wa Bahr” (“The Night and the Sea”), in which the band leader sings mainly in his native language Darija, the Moroccan dialect of Arabic. With saxophonist Nikolaus Holler, trombonist Jakob Mayr, Romanian-born bassist Michael Acker and drummer Walter Sitz, Chamma brings together proven forces from the young Austrian jazz scene.
In cooperation with the Ö1 jazz editorial team.