It was the Neanderthals who imagined a soundmaking miracle hiding in a cave bear’s leg bone and carved it into the oldest known musical instrument. Should any of them happen to drop by 50,000 years later, the anthemic flute-funk of the modern instrument’s current pop renaissance would blow their minds. But some of their invention’s oldest virtues might nonetheless be reassuringly familiar – soft-blown tones like sighs or whispers, evocations of birdsong or rainforest chatter. In the startling flute sound of the Paris-raised, Franco-Syrian improviser and composer Naïssam Jalal, its oldest virtues and wildest modern manifestations become one.
