Moroccan Jewish Music at JCC Manhattan - June 7, 2011

Zohra El Fassia. Laarosa. Zakiphon. 196?

Come check out my sessions at JCC Manhattan

Here is the schedule:

12:30 am
Koliphone Records: The Untold Story of Israel’s Arabic Singing Jewish Musicians

1:45 am
Sheikh it Baby: Arabic Music by Jewish Musicians

I know it's technically June 8 but come on the 7th and stay through the 8th :)

Felix el Maghrebi - A Life in 45s

Felix el Maghrebi was a mainstay of the Moroccan pop scene in the 1960s. His real name was Felix Weizman - Weizman being a somewhat popular Moroccan Jewish last name not related to its Ashkenazi counterpart. He died on March 6, 2008, right before the death of Samy ElMaghribi

I've been listening to a number of his 45s recently which I have only found on the N. Sabbah label, an indigenous Moroccan label produced in Casablanca. Interestingly, I have only seen / heard N. Sabbah 78s and 45s but no 33s. It seems as though N. Sabbah recorded mostly Jewish artists although as you will see from the back of this Felix el Maghrebi EP, the label also produced Muslim artists.

Felix el Maghrebi. El Frak & Khel Laiounne. N. Sabbah. 196?

Felix el Maghrebi. El Frak & Khel Laiounne. N. Sabbah. 196?

Felix el Maghrebi. Kaftanec Mahlou & El Mlaine. N. Sabbah. 196?

The first record is in my possession but I grabbed the second record image from the Jewish Moroccan Heritage site based in Belgium. If you click here, you can see a bunch of Moroccan Jewish 45 album covers. The Botbol cassette I recently uploaded can be seen in its record form as well as an Albert Suissa EP on Casaphone. I wish there were a way to bring these to the forefront of the site a bit more but a little searching does the trick.

I'll be uploading some more album art soon but in the meantime enjoy.

Samy Elmaghribi - New York

When I was last in Israel, I visited a number of record stores and made a number of contacts who had Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian and Libyan vinyl that they were willing to part with. I'm listening right now to some Samy Elmaghribi. The first title on this Koliphone/Zakiphon produced album is called New York. On New York, Samy sings about the boroughs and ends that line with talking about how the boroughs are well known (m3roofeen). He then lists the boroughs and ends with Brooklyn (Brookleen) to make a great rhyme and then sings about people in New York coming from many different religions (kul deen) to complete it. Great song. Great album. Very upbeat. If anyone has a full translation of New York, please let me know.

Koliphone/Zakiphon LP Covers

A while back I posted about an article in Haaretz that discussed Zohra El Fassia and the Koliphone/Zakiphon record labels. I was doing a little bit of searching in Hebrew today and came across the Hebrew version of the same article which included the above photo. Check out a very young looking Raymonde (who just performed in Essaouira) all the way to the right. You can also see the album covers of Jo Amar, Sami Elmaghribi (from the Ben Soussan LP - which I recently acquired) and Zohra El Fassia amongst others.

Cheikha Zohra El Fassia

Haaretz ran an excellent piece the other day that highlighted some of what I discussed with the Jo Amar entry - namely that Moroccan musicians continued to record (in Arabic) upon arrival in Israel.

Here are a couple interesting notes from the article:

• Israeli musicians "discovering" Moroccan music
• Some of the Moroccan music produced in Israel has been lost forever (due to a fire in the 1980s that destroyed the master copies of this music)
  

The article also discusses the the later years of her life. Here is some more background on Zohra El Fassia (also known as Cheikha Zohra El Fassia due to her mastery of a number of popular genres and traditional styles including gharnati, aita and melhoun).

A link to her "Ya Warda" can be found here. For a video of her performing, click here.

On a personal note, I have been working to collect the old LPs of Zohra El Fassia and other Moroccan Jewish artists including Sami El Maghribi, Cheikh Mwijo and others. As the above article discusses, this music is quickly being lost and we need to preserve it.

Here are a couple of excellent compilation CDs that feature (prominently) North African Jews:

• North Africa / Ethnic Music in 78 RPM / Recordings 1920 - 1940
  
• The Secret Museum of Mankind, North Africa Ethnic Music Classics: 1925-48

Pay close attention to - Raoul Journo, Louisa Tounsia and Cheikh Zouzou.

Berber Vinyl and Abitbol Cassettes

On Friday before heading out to interview Raphy, I stopped by a fantastic music store (for those in Casa, the store is located at 26 Lalla Yacout Street). Le Comptoire Marocain de Distribution de Disques carrys an extensive collection of Arab and Berber music in vinyl, cassette, and cd form from mostly the 1960s and 1970s. The music is hand picked and excellent quality. I picked up a few Berber LPs. These musicians were all from the Souss region and were masters or rwais of the rebab (spiked fidle). Interestingly, there were ahwash and rwais musicians amongst Chleuh speaking Jews (including from Ighil N'Oro - a picture of the Jewish cemetery there is at the top of the blog) who eventually imported this musical style to Israel, click here to read more.

I had originally stopped by to see if they had any Samy Elmaghribi or Salim Hilali on vinyl - two universally respected (by Moroccans) Moroccan Jewish singers. Unfortunately they didn't have any. Also, there was recently an exhibit on Samy Elmaghribi at the Casablanca Jewish Museum.

But...

In another testament to the ominpresence of Jewish life in Morocco, the store carried an extensive and possibly complete collection of the popular (shaabi) Moroccan Jewish singer Abitbol. I picked up one of his cassettes and will post a picture of the cover soon.