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,

Another fine ياظالمني (Ya Zalamny), such a great piece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pB4cFbJ3UE

Segment of the very upbeat film song Ghannili Sheway Sheway, apparently with audience sing-along, unless she had a chorus with her for this song, but seems like an audience thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfFaMeMfd-s

Please ban from the internet the person leaving one thumbs down on a lot of these videos.

Terrific photo of Oum Kalthoum with Fairouz

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/e5/1b/4a/e51b4a852c0458ad80039d8a8a6e43f1.jpg

Have not linked to this lately (or possibly ever). A "reasonably complete" list of her songs:

http://almashriq.hiof.no/egypt/700/780/umKoulthoum/Songs/

I think this is the same as what's in an appendix of Virginia Louise Danielson's thesis.

Another performance of Ya Zalamni. It's such a privilege to hear how she varied the performance for some of these songs from concert to concert. Much of her improvising here goes in very different directions than the main recording I'm familir with:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MbOBC5eggc

It looks like I have somehow never mentioned Awedt Einy on this thread, unless I gave it some sort of spelling I can't currently remember. Just bookmarked a search on recordings of this song which is somewhat similar to Ya Zalamni (and came out at around the same time I think). So far, so good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2QcRYmLzEk

Just amazing to be able to hear all of this.

(I've never said it before but Oum Kalthoum's kanunist looks like a character actor.)

Instrumental jazz cover of Baligh Hamdi's Alf Layla Wa Layla (late career Oum Kalthoum song) that I missed last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUa_srT-uL8

I miss the extremely varied orchestration of the original. One of the enjoyable things about late period Oum Kalthoum songs is that they tend to have a wide sound palate in performance, so you get some electric gutiar, some accordion, some saxophone, etc. along with the core of her orchestra.

The original:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul4z6sLnXYY

Sorry but not finding the Maalouf too exciting.

I also really like the emphatic quality of the strings on the Oum Kalthoum Alf Lyla recording (I was thinking "strident" but then I listened again and it's not quite strident). And the bent notes on electric guitar, few though they are.

You watnt to do a contemporary instrumental of a Baligh Hamdi song? Maybe you should try some sort of maximalist electric and electronic approach. (Not that there aren't some good melodies that can be worked with in a fairly straight form, but I think maybe the emphasis should be on worked with, rather than just following the way the songs play out when sung.)

جددت حبك ليه / Gadedt Hobak Leh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1aTQHWoT98

This kind of goes on and on but it's wonderful. In recordings from this time period, the sound of her voice as such is often enough to keep me absorbed. I think my CD copy of a version of it has a transliteration that includes an unpronounceably consonant-laden initial word.

Fun concert footage of Howwa Sahih, partly for all the audience shots. I'm guessing this is an Egyptian audience because while they are certainly engaged, they also seem kind of relaxed, not like the over the top audiences she often had when she toured other countries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZIq9bcmhEc

The oudist sitting behind her is Mohamed El Qasabji, who composed so many of her early songs, but stayed with her orchestra well past the point he was still writing for her.

It's also a pretty straight delivery of a song she can be heard to play around with a lot more in other recordings I linked to above. It seems like there is a little more emphasis here on delivering the text, and less focus on tarab, to the extent I can make that sort of judgment without even being able to understand the words.

(And I wanted to go to bed early but I might just stay up and listen to the rest of this.)

Well, this is good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIo_N8KIZec

This looks like it's a playlist entirely devoted to Ya Zalamny but I haven't heard most of it yet. Paradise on earth. If I saw it before, why has it taken me this long to get to it.

Woo Hoo!

The fourth performance on that playlist has some phenomenal instrumental soloing toward the end. It's great to hear some of the key accompanists stretch out more than they often have the chance to do. The concert ends up feeling very distinctive. Crowd is completely nuts.

The oudist almost never takes solos, and here he is laying down this amazing takasim.

Needles to say, she had nothing but the best musicians in her orchestra, especially in lead roles.

This fifth performance, she is messing with the audience's head early on. I think she's working in an unexpected modulation to a different maqam, but not even during an unmetered section where improvisation is more expected. Really interesting stuff. I wasn't as taken with the second and third performances on this playlist.

This is fantastic.

25:51

!!!

LOL.

https://www.google.com/search?q=oum+kalthoum+audience+member+kiss+feet&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiVw5nlzcLRAhUCrVQKHfXmCbMQ_AUICSgC&biw=960&bih=438#imgrc=K1TZ0hXMwa8n5M%3A

I don't know if this excerpt is from a concert posted in complete form elsewhere. It's hard to explain why some of this is so amazing. If you aren't familiar with the song (I'm still listening through the Ya Zalamny playlist linked to above), it would probably be more difficult to hear it. The pauses/breaks are quite distinctive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4ftMOWvmCg

Sahran Lewahdi with what I guess are shortwave radio (or some kind of radio) noises mixed in here and there!

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

Ney solo + woooOOOOoooo of scifi radio bubble sounds.

Good performance too.

Good entry point for fans of early electronic music.

ولد الهدى Woleda el Hoda (Oulida el Hoda)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVexui3SAJE

Powerful.

I noticed that in some of the 50s recordings, the percussion jumps out, at least at times, more than in later recordings. I like it. It might particularly be drew of the religiously-themed material (like the song above).

I don't understand why there aren't more performances of "Habibi Yes`ed Awqatu" (حبيبى يسعد اوقاته). I think that is one of her greatest songs. It's one of the first ones I really liked. The Palestinian who helped me get oriented in Arabic music was surprised that I singled that one out, as he said he had only recently come to appreciate it (and perhaps music by Zakaria Ahmed from that era in general).

Haven't finished with this, but so far it's yet another extraordinary performance of Robaeyat El Khayam:

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

Like the lines are different channels she is switching between, always on, but only heard one at a time.

I somehow forgot about the Robaeyat El Khayam playlist (on Nizar Nasser's channel) before. This is high priority hear-before-I-die material.

Studio version of Robaeyat el Khayam. I've never heard this before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j7GnVEiJg8

Relationship of accompaniment to vocal line is quite different in places. 22:25-22:40. Those heavy flourishes from the accompaniment. Sounds odd to me. Anyway, I've never noticed any live versions that stick to that. Maybe it's there and I just haven't noticed. But it almost has to be more subtle if it hasn't jumped out in the same way, so it would still be different to a degree.

Odd how there is a slow instrumental conclusion to the performance. In live performance the real ending is always with her last climactic vocal closure.

A very strong Shams El Aseel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DPcKB0TKx0

One of the best songs written for her in the 60s, Aqolak Eh An El Shouq:

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

Longer than the standard recording, and I'm pretty sure it's from a different concert. Some of the ornamentation on the lead violin's lines in the beginning isn't there in this one, if I'm not mistaken. I should know for sure, but it's not something I've listened to all that recently.

Takes her accompaniment a long time to realize she is going to repeat the verses she just sang, rather than move on, at: 5:47. Maybe her kanunist missed a cue.

"Ela Arafat Allah," in a similar style as Nahj el Borda and Oulida al Hoda:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0agcHiUkU4

Youtube is placing an add in the middle. Man, is that annoying. I am hoping that will go away if I play as embedded video.

"Ela Arafat Allah" is so good.

Kinda bugs me, that with her deserved fame, her name is still "mother of Kalthoum". Her birthname, btw, is Fātimah ʾIbrāhīm as-Sayyid al-Biltāǧī.

I guess you know that Umm Kulthum was one of the companions of the Prophet, so it's got a certain cachet in that cultural context.

I don't know the history of how the subject of this thread ended up with that name though. I don't remember if I've ever read an explanation.

I can also see how the name's background doesn't necessarily make it any less annoying that her name is mother of somebody or other.

40s and 50s songs are generally so much better. There are a few exceptions, but really just a few as far as I'm concerned. *eating a handful of Ajwa dates*

I love that Spotify has a bunch of her "singles" in chronological order now. There are some difficult songs with difficult titles that I've always had trouble keeping track of. This helps.