Arabic music (not elsewhere classified)

If we've both read A.J. Racy, that makes us the Arab music "experts" here!

I'm still not sure that the melodic arabesques are strictly a result of the maqam system though. I hear other music I consider has what I would call twisty-turny melodies. Part of it, I think, is the length of the vocal line. It's like when you listen to passages from the Qur'an that have really long lines: they go on in this elaborate way, because the qari has to keep doing something. So I mean, I think it's partly a byproduct of the length of the vocal lines.

I would say that specific melodic patterns (specific scale degrees, ornamentations, and so on) trigger tarab as well, but I see what you are saying.

“Frequently voiced is the opinion that maqamat with such ‘neutral’ steps [referring to microtones], embody ecstatic qualities that are extraordinarily potent (Racy pg98).”

I've mostly grown out of listening to Warda, but there are some great songs and moments in her output. This might be my favorite song of hers (by way of composer Baligh Hamdi):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv1zYjre7hk&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtbJPUF2M20&feature=related

(Ignore the moronic comment saying Warda is overrated but still better than Oum Kalthoum. Oum Kalthoum is the gold standard.)

I've mostly grown out of listening to Warda

Sorry, I should have found a less obnoxious way of putting this.

don't worry about it

Lots of performers from Yemen I know nothing about. Seems very 70s with the electric guitar and saxophone (which only show up briefly):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSBk-1LOgc4&feature=related

(Mohammed Abdo is originally from Yemen, I'm pretty sure.)

This is pretty great (maybe more for the "band" than the singer):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUMpScd4ppw&feature=related

Crazy late 60s (or early 70s?) Abdel Halim Hafez song, music by Mohamed Abdel Wahab. Shockingly shlocky at times, but frequently brilliant and beautiful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RboUg9cW6s

I like the way it skips along at 4:14 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBwJA2RMH3Y&feature=PlayList&p=21B7E0CC0892DA0C&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=39

And that flute (of whatever sort) sounds like what I imagine Blake's "piping down the valleys wild" would sound like.

The audiences were totally bonkers by this point in time though. I think maybe too bonkers.

I don't know what to say about this except that it's such a slice of Arab (Syrian) life sort of thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-Dj_MOxh7M&feature=related

I saw this guy in Atlantic City (as I've probably mentioned a few times already).

The Sublime Frequencies Iraq disc is great fun.

Some of this early George Wassouf stuff was pretty killer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBYeqp8UICA&feature=related

DV, I don't know, I find a lot of that Choubi Choubi compilation to be filler.

Okay, wait this is seriously one my favorite George Wassouf songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZVRgHqpOf4&feature=player_profilepage

I think this one is something of an Arab standard. Kazem El Saher also does a version of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQTeU3VzzaU&feature=related

Great tune.

Those keyboards that come in a little before two minutes in!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc0mQFqf7B8

I had totally forgotten that I once started a thread just for this purpose:

George Wassouf, the gateway drug. (Now the truth can be told, via youtube.)

This was one of my favorites too and I suppose I am liking this quasi-early GW stuff again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48U_AQHllhA

And here's Roh el Roh, for old time's sake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhOgdE_kznk

Needs more discourse. :(

There's a middle eastern restaurant near my work and I go there once in a while. They generally have on an Arab music channel, and the trend seems to be for videos that have pointlessly long credits at the end, like half as long as the main portion of the video itself. And there's nothing particularly impressive about most of the videos. Very peculiar. I still think Arab pop/popular music is in pretty sad shape at them moment, overall, especially the Egyptian or imitation-Egyptian stuff. I do find more to like in current khaleeji music.

EMBASSY OF BAHRAIN
3502 International Drive NW Washington DC
Friday, November 13, 2009, 7:30 PM

Join us for a wonderful celebration of Bahraini music with outstanding artists from Bahrain. A lavish buffet follows. This is our first Arabian Gulf State. Come celebrate with us. $100/BUFFET

With: ten year veteran on acoustic and electric guitar, Mr. Mohammed has played with several artists and groups from Bahrain such as alshimoo band, ikhuwa band, latin jazz and the Lumavida Band. He collaborated with the Maestro Khalifa Zeman in a song composed and produced by Mr. Khalifa Zeman, of the Bahraini Music Group, and was part of the National Festival of Bahrain.

Zeyad Khalifa bin Zaiman

A Bahraini artist, musician and pianist since age 2, Mr. Zaiman has participated in festivals, local and international competitions, and television and Radio programs. Mr. Zaiman plays the clarinet, guitar, piano and many other instruments on his own compositions. At this event he will be performing mostly on clarinet and piano. He is working now towards earning his degree in Music at the Higher Institute for Music in Kuwait.

Banning Eyre from the new afropop blog:

Flew into Vegas on Tuesday night for the big Sahra spectacle at the MGM Grand. Khaled from Algeria, Assala Nasri from Syria, and Rida Al Abdulla from Iraq will headline an extravagant stage show featuring 100 musicians and dancers. All to raise money for children's causes in N. Africa and the Middle East. This is a rare one. Very few non-English music shows ever play on the big stages here, and this will be in the Garden Arena, set up to seat some 8,000. (Its full capacity is twice that!) http://www.afropop.org/banningsblog/"> http://www.afropop.org/banningsblog/

When I was considering interviewing for a job in Las Vegas, the prospect of seeing Arab performers perform there occasionally was definitely a plus. In fact, I think it's a little more common for big-name Arab performers to perform there than in most other cities in the U.S., possibly even NYC. (I decided Albuquerque is already a little too dry for me, so Vegas was out, not to mention the more extreme heat as well.)

http://afropop.org/multi/feature/ID/919/Sahra:%20Arab%20Stars%20in%20Vegas,%20review%20by%20Banning%20Eyre

More on the big show in Vegas

I really wish Baligh Hamdi had done some all-instrumental recordings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G05ooMSOj5E&feature=related

These are fantastic.

Thanks, not that I can take a lot of credit for them.

Samira Tewfic (Toufic, Toufiq, Tawfik):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H-lam4SkEY

Sounds like Lebanese band behind here (I think she lives there), but looks like concert is in a Gulf state.

I could just completely bullshit here. "That style of ney playing is obviously Jordanian." Nobody would know the difference.

Shadia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etx7_4AL-kI

I think that's a really good song, it's not so much about her own contribution. I guess I will have to pick up the 2 CD best of that came out a couple years back.

Just bought my first Sublime Frequencies disc, Choubi Choubi! Folk & Pop Sounds from Iraq. Seems very good. This label seems a little dodgy to me, tho? (according to PopMatters, the label "sometimes . . . just go(es) to Asian countries and tape(s) great songs off the radio")

Yeah, I don't know. I do think that in some cases the whole idea of copyright is fairly loose in the Middle East. Trying to track down the real copyright holders for Iraqi songs from twnety or thirty or more years ago probably isn't all that easy, though a couple people on that compilation do have actual releases available through importers. They seem to be smart enough to stay away from most big name artists with major label backing. Anyway, I wouldn't not buy Sublime Frequencies CDs.

Oh, yeah. I bought a total of four Sublime Frequencies discs at the Smithsonian today: Choubi Choubi!; Bollywood Steel Guitar; Thai Pop Spectacular (1960 -- 1980s); and Siamese Soul: Thai Pop Spectacular Vol. 2 (1960 -- 1980s).

This singer, Salah AbdulGhafour, is my favorite on that compilation (probably my favorite Iraqi singer though I don't know that much about Iraqi music):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umBIxTKOr-g

This is a bit less wild than most of the stuff on that CD though.

I think this is him again with dancing girls:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51rEdNfIm4g

(Roots of reggaeton. . .)

And this is my favorite song of his (actually just a cover of a standard):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgVLw8iEhec

(I had lost track of this, or it had disappeared, but here it is again.)

Yow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9Yya-4bWUk

O_O. Diggin' the music, too. The visuals help, tho.

I am listening to an album, Rhythms (generic name, unpromising cover) by Ahmed el Hifnawi, Oum Kalthoum lead violinist (or however you would describe it), the one who took the solos and kept the violin section in order, etc. This is the last of three of his CDs I just picked up. (A fourth that I ordered was apparently unavailable.) In addition the more conventional instrumentation on the first two CDs, this one has that great electric keyboard you hear in a lot of Egyptian recordings from the late 60s through the 70s. In fact, I'm surprised by how much the keyboard is featured here--happily surprised, not because I don't like el Hifnawi, but because I'm always asking: why didn't they record more instrumental jams with those electric keyboards? One downside is that these are studio recordings and the approach is more "serious" and cautious, so the keyboards aren't played with the abandon one hears on live recordings, but just in terms of timbre, it's pretty great. And funny how nothing about the title would clue one in to the fact that this is keyboard heavy; if anything I might have expected more emphasis on percussion, obviously. Alas, no credits in English on this thing, and very little in the way of liner notes even in Arabic.

This collection of el Hifnawi reissues appeared a couple years back. I don't think I've ever seen any solo el Hifnawi on CD since I've been looking for such things. You can peruse them at http://www.rashid.com/enter.asp

I should probably research the upcoming Sunday February 28 Masters of Persian Music with Kayhan Kalhor on kamancheh and Hossein Alizadeh on tar and young vocalist Hamid Reza Nourbakhsh, leading disciple of the renowned Mohammad Reza Shajarian, show at the Kennedy Center

Whatever you think is best.

Just a quick note about that Rhythms CD, since I put so much emphasis on the electric keyboard. Before y'all run out and buy it, I should let you know it's only on the first track. (It's still a good album.)

As far as Persian musicians go, at the moment I'm most interested in hearing Hossein Alizadeh.

But I think I'm more interested in his more "experimental" work, like his electrified instrument: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/halizadeh2 or his fusions with western classical: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/halizadeh, just because I don't totally relate to Persian classical music. In fact, I've decided my strategy w/r/t to Iranian and Turkish music should be to go for the impure material (whether westernized or experimental).

The very interesting Iranian label Hermes Records also carries dozens of CDs on which Alizadeh appears in some capacity or other:

http://www.hermesrecords.com/catalo.htm

Also that work I said is electrified is not. Not sure where I got that idea.

Hossein Alizadeh is interesting. Watched a Youtube. The Masters of Persian Music tour that he is on, I see includes more than just DC on Sunday. I saw references to Boston and elsewhere online. I think I might have to miss it now though.

RFI: music like tanger music?

Can't help there.

Of the three Al Hifnawi CDs I bought, so far I like this best:

http://www.allegro-music.com/sku_images/HMC31387.JPG

The Grand Melodies of Om Kalsoum. He's performing here with her orchestra (of which he was a member, of course), but it sounds to me like a slightly more stripped down version of it than you hear in a lot of her mid-to-late-career recordings, which is a good thing in my book. For one thing, there seems to be a bit more heterophonic stuff going on, at least on some cuts. This collection focuses on songs from the late 30s and 40s (also I good thing, imo). Anyway, I think this is an excellent instrumental introduction to the old classical/popular Egyptian music. It might just work as a way to ease people into approaching Oum Kalthoum's vocals somewhere down the line. If it isn't obvious, Al Hifnawi's violin takes the place (to the extent that's possible, etc. etc.) of Oum Kalthoum's voice here.

it sounds to me like a slightly more stripped down version of it

Could just be the arrangements and not actually a change in the size of the orchestra. Plus, given the quieter dynamics of Al Hifnawi's violin playing, it can't really let itself get as loud as it would in accompanying Oum Kalthoum's amplified voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nkf5czm7k8I