[...] Garbarek, Brahem et Hussain proposent neuf motifs à méditation transcendantale [...] Grand moment de sérénité subtile [...] Il doit être possible de vivre en compagnie de ce seul disque.

[...] Modale, terriblement modale ; lyrique, terriblement lyrique ; virtuose et aérienne, terriblement : la ren­contre de Garbarek, Brahem et Hussain porte le numéro 1515 au catalogue ECM. L’Histoire a de ces détours...

[...] Garbarek, Brahem et Hussain tissent ensemble un tapis de sons intimistes où le silence a sa place, où les fils se dénouent, se distendent puis se rejoignent de nouveau. Ces trois là savent s’écouter et se répondre avant de s’assembler. Nulle profusion dans leur musique, mais un grand dépouillement. Le sax ténor ou soprano de Garbarek emprunte à l’Orient son lyrisme. Le oud de Brahem se teinte de syncopes jazzy ou de vélocité flamenque. Les sonorités métalliques du tabla de Hussain complètent magnifiquement la douceur veloutée du oud et du sax. Leur swing léger vogue de sautillantes ballades en méditatives promenades [...]

Jan Garbarek délivre des bolées d’air pur dans MADAR. Depuis longtemps, il a les oreilles tournées vers les étoiles, les déserts, les steppes... et le jazz. Il épanche ici la clarté de son saxo chantant. Jeu d’ombre et de lumière, subtilement décliné avec le virtuose tunisien du oud, Anouar Brahem, et le vétéran pakistanais des tablas, Shaukat Hussain. Ils distillent une douceur d’aube, des notes roses et bleues, des rythmes d’ocre aux senteurs de sable, des rêves de ragas... Et un lyrisme saisissant.

[...] It is as though the music that they are creating together is, in a way, an underground river which resurges all of the sudden, the incarnation of musical impulses coming from ancient genera­tions, and the unconscious is thus conserved. Only now, it is a new au­dible after the instrumental technique and the sincerity of the musicians be­comes so developed that it launches a memory of common things long ago forgotten. Jan Garbarek picks-up me­lodies which for him are foreign and transforms them as a sleepwalker walking barefoot on the burning coals of Arab and Indian music. And Anouar Brahem inserts himself in the long phrases of Garbarek’s saxophone. It is so calm and supreme that it seems that the Tunisian man, stretched-out on his divan, has gone much further than most musicians of jazz affairs in their quest of new music.

[...] Here you have three musicians who improvise and transgress all the traditions which they have been is­sued, always guarding a conscience of their origins as something funda­mental. The result is an exchange by three among continents, a particular celebration whose reason is the great mutual respect and intelligent and sensitive concertation. Of cultures which disconcert and master us.

[...] A world of sound which fascinates and side-tracks. Hypnotizing music which, from the begining to the end, from solo to duo to trio, bewitches us and raises us above the fray [...] In MADAR, the foreign cultures do not only flirt with each other, they meet, communicate and melt together.

[...] Jan Garbarek has created an ab­solutely original aesthetic of quietude. Anouar Brahem masters just as well the excellent art of the pause, the art of saying a lot with very little sound [...] Inspired improvisations, of great music, important, timeless and place­less.

[...] One of Garbarek’s most interes­ting albums to date [...] Brahem on oud, and Hussain’s tabla drums pro­vide Garbarek with some stimulating interaction [...] Sull Jull and Joron have bite and depth.