For Bassel Almadani, Planting Roots In NEO Is (Super)natural

At times during my conversation with Bassel Almadani that I conducted on his front porch in a leafy Lakewood neighborhood, his adorable daughter crawled into his lap to share a confidence, or just to get a hug. That conversational, one-to-one style of communication is in his music, too and will be offered Saturday when Bassel and the Supernaturals return to BOP STOP.

Almadani is from Kent, a place he remembers fondly as, “a really good place to grow up. The first 18 years of my life was in the same home.”

A reverence for deep roots is more than an intellectual exercise for Almadani. His parents are from Aleppo, the Syrian city that has been continuously inhabited longer than any place on earth. “I had friends from many different backgrounds and didn’t understand then that was like a gift.”

He also had older brothers who were Almadani’s point of entry into the regional music scene that was coming to a simmer with bands such as The Party of Helicopters and the Black Keys.

With its strong sense of community, hardcore scene was a natural spot for Almadani, who drummed in hardcore bands. But when one of the bands he was in planned to replace him with a drum machine, Almadani looked to for a new direction.

With years of violin and piano lessons, and proficiency on guitar, and armed with an early version of Cubase, one of the first computer recording programs, Almadani record his songs as a one-man band. Yet he missed the adrenaline of life on the stage and the interaction with other musicians.

These he found in Chicago, where he moved following graduation from Ohio State. Yet it was an opportunity to play at the 2010 Pelotonia Kickoff Ceremony with Counting Crows in Augustana in Columbus that catalyzed the formation of the Supernaturals.

The band went through the usual changes of personnel, and in time, musical orientation too. “I had been a solo songwriter before,” Almadani said, “So the Supernaturals officially formed in Chicago and I started working with musicians to play the full-band music that I had now created and recorded.”

It was music that had become beat-forward. Almadani’s vocals, sweet-toned and lyrical, embraced R&B influences; Curtis Mayfield’s Chicago soul comes to mind. Later collaborations with saxophonist Christopher Coles, trumpeter Tommy Lehman and keyboard player Andru Dennis brought jazz into the mix, too.

Recordings followed and tours crisscrossed the country. Inevitably, they led back home. “I was in Chicago for 12 years, and for the last seven years, we were wondering if we wanted to have kids,” Almadani said. “The band had always been from Chicago, but I’d met some musicians having grown up in Northeast, Ohio. I started to reach out to some of them and asked them about the scene, I quickly realized that there’s just so many good musicians here–but not as many venues. But being a touring artist here, it’s a lot easier to find musicians, work with them on a regular basis and have opportunities that I can give them to get out on tour, which was really really cool.”

The band is a Cleveland/Chicago hybrid with drummer Michael Gore and guitarist Joe Rangel representing the Windy City while bassist Jeremey Poparad rapper Lt Headtrip and Max Schlenk, who will be making his first Supernaturals gig on saxophone, are the Ohio contingent.

Being a bandleader is a role that can be more managerial than musical. Yet Almadani has no regrets about the decision to abandon the stool and the acoustic guitar for the rough and tumble–and exultation–that band life can bring.

“I bring creative seeds to the table all the time, but i work with other musicians to bring them to life,” he said. “And I invite other seeds to be planted in the garden. we water them together.”

Bassel and The Supernaturals, Saturday, May 2, 8 p.m., BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave., Cleveland Tickets, $25 available here.

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For the most complete listing of jazz and jazz-adjacent events., look to Jim Szabo’s essential, weekly Northeast Ohio jazz calendar.