It’s interesting that even after 900 years, thoughts of a person who was a polymath in the daytime and a pessimist Epicurean drunkard during the night are still valid and sound.
Not only still Omar Khayyam’s (1048-1131) precise solar calendar is being used and some of his mathematical achievements are fundamentals of computer sciences but also until now people read his skeptical poetry with a glass of wine in their hand and try to seize the moments of their lives based on his philosophical advises:
Shall I still sigh for what I have not got,
Or try with cheerfulness to bear my lot?
Fill up my cup! I know not if the breath
I now am drawing is my last, or not!
(Translated by E. H. Whinfield, 1883)
“Por Kon” (“Fill up!”) by Golsa, a young jazz-soul singer on vocals and Behzad Danesh, Iranian-Canadian jazz musician and guitar player, composer and producer, is an electro-jazzy approach to the ancient poem while trying to be loyal to the idea of the poet.
Probably the poet, while having a glass of wine in a meykhane in 900 years ago, would never imagine his words would be sung by a female singer in a jazz tune in the future.
But jazz music, shaped in the bars and juke joints, is actually the favorite form of music for the people who are tired of the business of the world and want to have a glass and live the moment for a while.
How long should I rue whether I possess or not,
And spend my life to my heart’s content or not?
Fill up the beaker o’ wine, for I’m wondering if
This breath I inhale would come out or not!
(contemporary translation by Hamed Abdi)
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Golsa on Spotify, Soundcloud, Instagram.
Photo: @shahab.jamalzadeh