The pioneering artist, son of the legendary Fairuz and composer Assi Rahbani, was also a playwright, pianist and political provocative.
The Lebanese musician and composer Ziad Rahbani, son of the iconic singer Fairuz and pioneer of Fusion Jazz, died at the age of 69 of a heart attack.
“On Saturday at 9:00 am, the heart of the great artist and creator Ziad Rahbani stopped winning,” said a hospital statement on Saturday where he was being treated in the capital, Beirut, on Saturday.
Rahbani influenced generations of Lebanese people with their songs and especially their works, whose lines are known by memory by young and old.
He was the son of Fairuz, the last living legend of the Arabic song, and one of the most famous Arab women worldwide, and the composer Assi Rahbani, who, together with his brother Mansour, modernized the Arabic song by combining western, russian and Latin American pieces with medium east rhythms.
“I admire the music of composers like Charlie Parker, Stan Getz and Dizzy Gillespie,” Rahbani said once. “But my music is not western, it is Lebanese, with a different form of expression.”
Farouoz also became an icon for young people when Rahbani composed songs for her influenced by jazz rhythms: she called “Eastern Jazz.”
Lebanon leaders paid a sincere tribute to the Lebanese composer, who was also a playwright, pianist and political provocative.
President Joseph Aoun called Rahbani “a living conscience, a voice that rebelled against injustice, and a sincere mirror of the oppressed and marginalized.”
“Lebanon has lost an exceptional and creative artist, a free voice that remained faithful to the values of justice and dignity” and said “what many did not dare to say,” said Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.
Rahbani's works reflected the hybrid inheritance of Lebanon, which, until the civil war broke out in 1975, was a cultural melting. He also reflected the posterior sectarian struggle, which involved bloody street battles between rival militias and three years of violent Israeli occupation after the 1982 invasion.
While Fairuz transcended the powerful sectarian divisions in the country, his son chose to be resolutely left and secular, denouncing the long divisions of Lebanon. His playing work, Nazl El-Sourour (Happiness Hotel), premiered in 1974 when he was only 17 years old, portrayed a society disfigured by the inequality and repression of the class.
The work follows a group of workers who take care of a restaurant to demand their rights, only to be dismissed by the political elite.
In another work, Bennesbeh Labokra Chou? (What's up tomorrow?), He plays a bar pianist in the Civil War Beirut. The work presents part of the most moving music in Rahbani and the scathing comments, including the famous line, “they say that tomorrow it will be better, but what happens today?”
Rahbani was also a composer of amazing rank. He infused traditional Arab melodies with jazz, funk and classical influences, creating a hybrid sound that became instantly recognizable. His live performances were legendary, when he often played piano in smoked clubs in Hamra, one of Beirut's main commercial districts.
In recent years, Rahbani appeared less in the public eye, but the younger generations rediscovered their online works and tested their music in protest movements. He continued composing and writing, often speaking of his frustration with the political stagnation of Lebanon and decomposition public life.
“I feel that everything is over, I feel that Lebanon has been empty,” Libanese actress Carmen Lebbos, her former partner, in X.
Rahbani survives his mother, now 90 years, his sister Rema and his brother Hali.
