"[3][4] They sought to sustain and continue the Andalusian classical music traditions of Tarik's native Morocco and his ancestors' home in Moorish Andalusia.
Ted Gioia, author of The History of Jazz, likened Al-Andalus Ensemble's creation of the "contemporary Andalusian" genre to Astor Piazzolla's creation of Nuevo Tango style, essentially saying that both these sets of musicians had revitalized traditional musical styles that were growing stagnant by embracing multicultural influences that allowed them to transform and modernize their traditional music.
[6] He was also an active member of the Madrid flamenco music scene since the late 1970s until the early 1980s, including membership in the jazz-flamenco fusion band Guadalquivir.
Julia Banzi holds a PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and specializes in flamenco and women's performance of Andalusian music.
She contributed two chapters on Moroccan and Spanish food and women's performance to the multi-authored book The Ethnomusicologists' Cookbook: Complete Meals from Around the World (Routledge 2006).
The ensemble's membership of musicians and dancers shifted with its performance needs, and past and current members have include Grammy Award-winning violinist and founder of Shadowfax Charlie Bisharat, Boujemaa Razgui, whose flutes were destroyed by US Customs, Billy Oskay Nightnoise, Jorge Pardo, Pink Martini Gavin Bondy and Martín Zarzar, Anthony Jones, Joe Heinemann, Ranjani Krishnan and Margarita Bruce.