Oum Kalthoum, Om Kolthom, Om Kalsoum, Omm Kalsoum, Omme Kolsoum, Oom Koolsum, Oum Kalthoum, Oum Kalthum, Oum Kalsoum, Oum Kaltsoum, Oum Kolthoum, Oum Koulsoum, Oum Kulthum, Oum Kulthume, Um Kalthoum,

Tonight I picked up:

Mohammed Abdel Wahab: Daret al Ayam [I don't like his singing here, and I'm not that big a fan of his oud playing anyway, though the title song has some great moments, compositionally speaking; but you're better off with the Oum Kalthoum recording, I think. Actually, even that isn't among her best, but parts of this song are quite memorable.]

Farid el Atrache: Hikayet Gharami

Asmahan & Farid [two different CDs, one blue, one pink]

I'm really happy I didn't miss out on the chance to pick up the Asmahan & Farid CDs. The sound quality is surprisingly better than it is on the Club du Disques Arabe "Les Archives de la Musique Arabe" Asmahan CDs (for the songs that overlap). In particular, her singing is much clearer here. Mind you, this is not fantastic sound, just relatively better. These disques [unintended typo! how did I do that?] contain the songs that Farid wrote for his sister. I wonder what sort of originals Club du Disques Arabe was working from.

The store where I bought these also had some Latin CDs on sale for cheap. I picked up a Victor Manuelle compilation for &6.99. I think it was probably worth it.

From Vol. II of the "Anthologie de la Musique Arabe" Oum Kalthoum CD series: Kam Baatna (1926) 7'25; Dzikra Saad (1926) 4'30; Ya Assiya Elhagr (1927) 6'48; Ala Anni El Hagr (1927) 6'00, etc.

*Unlike about a dozen great Arabic music audio sites I had bookmarked long ago, which have either disappeared, no longer work, or now charge money.

my favorite part of the album comes in the intro to the first song where there's an electric guitar playing the lead melody. it's got a clean tone, and almost reminds me of either surf music (yes i know dick dale was heavily influenced from his lebanese upbringing) or some of the guitar leads in a Morricone western. i guess i like this now because it's the most western, recognizable element of the music. something i can grasp onto. it's also neat because, the guitar being fretted, you can't get many of the semitones you would be able to get from a violin or oud.

btw. Rockist: you're A Music Consumer and DeRayMi? i always thought there were two big salsa lovers on the board, and now i find it's just you?

The music (by Mohammed Abdel Wahab) and lyrics are both pre-composed, but there is room for melodic, and other types of improvisation, by Oum Kaltoum. Also, Oum Kalthoum frequently would repeat verses or longer passages in response to audience requests to hear them again (or simply in response to her sense of the crowd's mood); and part of the challenge would be to sing the same thing again, but change it in effective ways. I don't think that her orchestra would have had much difficulty staying in sync with her improvisation, since (a) they seem to have had certain conventional little sound squiggles they could fall back on and (b) they worked with her so extensively, and would have included musicians who had been with her for decades, probably.

Keep in mind that this is late in her career, and her voice is not as flexible or powerful as it was when she was younger.

Some other recordings that include electric guitar: Alf Leyla, We Marret el Aym (sometimes: Daret el Ayam, etc. etc.), Inta Omri.

("A Music Consumer" was an abortive name change, and yes DeRayMi is an earlier screen name, changed in a futile effort to stop putting out so much information that could identify who I am in real life.)

If anyone wonders who I consider to be not-dry oudists, I give my usual examples: Riad el-Sounbatti (whose CD of taksim is once again unavailable, so I've missed out for now), Mohammed el-Qassabji (though I haven't heard much of his solo playing at all), and Farid el Atrache (despite his over-reliance on the same formula for most solos).

I'm more willing to criticize someone like Simon Shaheen (or Marcel Khalife's oud experiments) because I think I have a handle on the tradition they are operating out of; but in the case of Hamza el Din, I don't think I have enough of a feel for Sudanese music, or for the distinctive Nubian ethnic tradition.

I'd be interested in hearing more though. The only CD I have by him is Music of Nubia. What have you heard and what would you recommend?

what i like about it is it's sparseness and feelings of melancholy and introspection. for most of the disc it's just him on oud and voice with the occasional percussion or clapping. everything is real slow and dark (just like i like my salsa, heh).

when i bought this cd, i was really feeling Sandy Bull and Peter Walker (a little less so). since then i've gotten more into Fahey and Robbie Basho. but this music really reminds me of these players. a man and his guitar. it's very intimate.

what i like the least about this is that it was recorded and produced by Micky Hart. i guess this isn't really a bad thing in itself, but it almost sticks a tag of "New-Age-World-Music" on it.

my tastes might be a lot different than yours RS. not that i don't think what you think is good is good, but that i really, really enjoy non-western musics, but from a western perspective. i really like stuff that is a foreign interpretation of western music. Brazilian tropicalia, Afro funk, Ethiopiques, Italian psych, French rock, Krautrock. I'm starting to get into Salsa because it reminds me of funky-jazz.
(ugh, i reread this and feel like a total bandwagon scenester dork)

and yeah, Shaheen does have an old Wahab album but this is a new project.

re Hamza el din - try Waterwheel his first album just rereleased by Nonesuch, his last album "the wish" is also pretty good

so why do you not care for Sudanese music? or perhaps, who have you heard as that might be part of it.

H, I haven't heard very much Sudanese music, and at this point I no longer remember who it is that I have heard. I am afraid I can't really describe what I don't like about it, but I think it might be that it sounds as if it's going to do what the Egyptian/Syrian/Lebanese/Gulf music I especially like does, but then instead it goes and does something else, leaving me disappointed.

I don't like jazz all that much, so Shaheen + Jazz isn't really a draw for me. In fact, in general, I don't like to hear Arabic music mixed with jazz (not that there's anything inherently wrong with it).

JasonD, Since so much salsa has been recorded in New York, I think it's fair to say that salsa is an American form of music (and Puerto Rico is, of course, kind of/sort of part of the U.S.). No need to defend your taste. I sometimes laugh at the "expert" persona I am wearing on this thread. You might like Abdel Wahab in particular, among Oum Kalthoum's composers, since he tended to make the most blatant use of various western styles. There are a lot of great electric keyboard sounds in this music from the 60's and 70's, but unfortunately, they often only appear in the introduction and maybe occasionally later on as a little added timbrel (sp?) variety.

>it sounds as if it's going to do what the Egyptian/Syrian/Lebanese/Gulf music I especially like does, but then instead it goes and does something else, leaving me disappointed.

This struck me as its so different from how I listen to music -enjoying similarities between e.g. Ethiopian & Indian, but also enjoying how they then go off in such completely different directions. I'm trying to think of what might cause that equivalent diappointment for me (only exxample i can think of is thinking "Under Pressure" is coming on the radio when it is "Ice Ice Baby" but that doesn't really work)

What in particular about this style grabs you to create that loyalty? We talked about rai on another thread but do you listen to music from Turkey? Armenia? I'm curious.

(was inspired to look up the Fadl album and was reminded on the website about the fact that 3 million (!) ppl attended Oum's funeral.)

The Vocals: Somehow the vocals in Turkish and Persian music that I've heard often feel either too restrained or too harsh, but Arabic vocals, at their best (a sneaky qualification), seem to me to strike an ideal balance. I like the sense that the vocalist is deliberately reeling out the singing.

The Instruments: I don't think there's a single traditional Arab instrument that I find bothersome. The oud, the kanun, the ney, and all the percussion typically used, sound "just right" to me. (The biggest problem for me in most of the Arabic music I like is the imported western string section, even if it is used differently.) Some Persian instruments are jangly in a way that I dislike (and I think some of these are used as well in Turkish music). Even one type of drum used in Persian music has this sort of rolling quality that I don't like (the percussive equivalent of the string instrument jangliness I hear elsewhere).

Improvisation: This applies especially to Oum Kalthoum, I suppose (and definitely not to Fairouz), but I enjoy the improvisatory element in Arabic singing. Maybe I have simply not listened to the right examples of related musics with an improvisatory aspect.

Rhythms: I'm not sure I have any problem with Persian and Turkish rhythms, but, I am very sure that I like Arabic rhythms, and I'll be damned if I can explain why, but I feel as though I am being re-organized by them, in a beneficial way. The rhythms in Oum Kalthoum's songs aren't usually the main draw for me (though I've gotten to like them over time, after taking a while to even notice that something was going on with the percussion), but I like belly dance rhythms; the fantastic rhythms in folkloric and some pop Syrian and Lebanese music; and much of the rhythm in Iraqi and Saudi music. Okay, one thing I can think of is that there's a certain way the rhythms seem to fall back on themselves, and then recollect themselves and keep moving. Also, they often contain a very long cycle of beats.

Melodies, modes, and structure in general: This is harder for me to talk about. I don't really have a way to describe these differences. The modes are pretty much exactly the same (from one middle eastern tradition to another), taken as a series of tones, but there must be some sort of difference in some of the other conventions surrounding how the modes are used. I don't know.

I think a lot of it is just that of all the modal, microtonal musics I've been exposed to, Arabic music is the one I've had the most exposure to, so it's become my "home base" in a way (at least for modal, microtonal music).

I'm pretty keen on some of the Greek music I've heard, but have had trouble finding anyone to guide me into more of that. Incidentally, I did start a thread about Turkish music here.

Something which I think was in the back of my head earlier was your coment on not liking jazz and Arabic mixes. I think perhaps I read (projected) a little more traditionalist approach into that than was meant as I was thinking ‘bout how ubiquity of jazz in 20s & 30s led to developments in many local music scenes from adoption of different instruments to new approaches to folkloric and that it is a building block for a lot of stuff (tho you do note above you don’t like the use of western string sections)

hmm, have to think and come back to this

BTW great thread, I haven't got round to anything since the cassete but I'll try to get some more during the easter break (I haven't investigated good places to get 'world music' in london but I'll look).

even though sun ra has done a lot with jazz, you know, that's where he starts from but I get what you're saying.

Though I still think you might get to like some jazz in the future.

Contemporary Egyptian dance music is not going to give me this. I like dance music (that is: music for dancing), but the old popular classical music is largely non-dance music for me.

Odd that people don't seem to talk that much about variation in tempo with a performance (or recording) as a value similar to variety of dynamic range. (One exception would be fans of prog.)

(Julio, once I have listened to all he Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald I want to listen to, my familiarity with the standards they sang might make me more receptive to instrumental jazz of all types. Not that that's why I want to listen to them (I want to listen to them because I like them--well, I know I like Billie Holiday, and I think I could like a lot of Ella), but it occurs to me that it could be a byproduct of doing so.)

Oh wait, you're shifting gears. El Hob Kolloh. Let me see what that is. That's very very late and not representative. If it's the one I'm thinking of, she's sounds like she's on her last legs. It has some creepy organ sounds in it, but I can't recommend it. It's more represenative of Abdel Wahab's compositional style than of Oum Katlhoum's singing abilities.

What else is there?

Yam Saharny is a great song in its own right, I just am not crazy about her version (which is the original).

I would recommen Hob Eh more over the other two, but I realize that download time may make that impossible.

I'm listening to El Hob Kolloh now and she sounds a bit out of place in the midst of this music, though it has its moments.

Volume 1
1. Azkouriny 33:37
2. Salo kaos al fella 31:13

Volume 2
1. Hadeeth al rouh 26:23
2. Ghareb ala bab el raga 22:26

Volume 3
1. Woleda el hoda 56:54

Volume 4
1. Gadet hobak leih 39:18

Volume 5
1. Al nile 27:04
2. Nagh el borda 22:56

Salo kaos al fella
Woleda el hoda
Nagh el borda

Judging by the track lengths, it looks like the box set versions of the latter two would be live recordings. I have only heard the studio recordings of these songs. They should still be good. For a long time I didn't like these two songs though. The melodies are very counterintuitive from a western point of view, and possibly even from an Arab point of view, since these were considered difficult songs at the time.

I am not sure I've heard the others, though I suspect they would be good. They seem to all be from around the 40's.

It's possible that more recent, individual, recordings of these songs would have better sound quality, but these are pretty old recordings to begin with.

[the record is WAY better than the REALLY LAME Fairuz record I bought; I am no worrying that Fairuz is actually rubbish, and the good record I have by her is an aberration]