Cheikha Rimitti Scopitone!

 

Watch it here.

 This is courtesy the FaceBook page (which I hope you can access) of the Archives Numérique du Cinéma Algérien, who say about it:

"Alors voici un document extrêmement rare et inédit sur internet: il s'agit d'un large extrait d'un scopitone de Cheikha Remitti tourné très probablement au début des années 1970 et dans lequel elle interprète le morceau "Aïn Kahla".

Nous sommes très heureux de partager avec vous ce document qui nous parait tout à fait exceptionnel.

Si vous reconnaissez le lieu de tournage n'hésitez pas à nous l'indiquer. S'agit-il de l'ouest algérien, d'un village du nord marocain, difficile à dire...

 

MAJ 22h08 : le film aurait été tourné à Debdou à l'est du Maroc, un grand merci à Nehams Ta pour la recherche

Un grand merci à la cinémathèque de Saint-Etienne de nous avoir permis de numériser ce scopitone au format super 8mm issu de notre collection."

 

For those of you who don't know French, the key points: it's an extract of a Cheikh Remitti scopitone, probably shot in the beginning of the 1970s, a segment of her song "Aïn Kahla." Filmed in the town of Debdou in eastern Morocco. (My guess is that the Algerian government would not have allowed, or made it very difficult, to film a Scopitone there.)

Raïna Raï at SOB's in New York City, February 1991

I had not known until yesterday that the rai band Raïna Raï had toured the US. (I found this posted on a FaceBook group I belong to.) According to wikipedia, this was in 1991.

The ad is somewhat curious, I'd never heard of the band described as the "sultans" of rai. Plus the claim that they were "direct from Algeria" is somewhat misleading. The members of the band were originally from the Algerian city of Sidi Bel-Abbès, but the band was started in Paris in 1980, where it has been based ever since. The most prominent member was guitarist and leader Lotfi Attar, and what was distinctive about their music in the eighties was the strong guitar element. The band is apparently still active.

On the other hand, they may have arrived in New York "direct from Algeria," as they did do concerts in Algeria. They appeared, for instance, at the first rai festival organized in Algeria, in Oran in 1985, and their performance there can be heard on the album Le Raï Dans Tous Ses Etats, released in 1986 (and very expensive used!).

Raïna Raï is probably best remembered for their 1985 track "Ya Zina," based on the song "Ya Zghida,"
-->originally recorded by Boutaïba Sghir and Messaoud Bellemou. Check out their official "Ya Zina" video below, featuring Lotfi Attar's very strong and distinctive guitar work, and at the end, percussion from qaraqeb, borrowed from the Gnawa (Diwane as it's known in Algeria) tradition. [added 7/9/21 and, thanks to John Schaefer's keen eye, someone from the Diwane milieu playing tbel.]

You can check out Boutaïba's "Ya Zghida" here.

Cheikh Raymond, Mustapha Skandrani, Meriem Abed, opening of television station, Constantine, 1959/1960

My apologies to whomever I grabbed this from off the web. It was over a year and a half ago and I can't remember where I got it from.

According to the post, this is who is in the photo:

First row, left to right: Abdelhak Benabbes (known as Tcheka), who played naghrat (percussion) in Cheikh Raymond's group 

Cheikh Raymond Leyris

Mustapha Skandrani (the great pianist who accompanied Reinette L'Oranaise, Hadj El Anka, Amar Ezzahi, and El Hachemi Guerouabi, among others)

Sylvain Ghrenassia (violinist in Raymond's group and father of Enrico Macias)

Alexandre "Judas" Nakkache (Jewish Algerian singer from Constantine)

 

Second row left to: Haddad Djillali (composer and conductor who worked with Meriem Abed, Rabah Driassa, Fadila Dziria, Leila El Djazairia, and Latifa, among others)

Meriem Abed (singer, active in 50s and 60s)

Hadjira Bali (singer from Oran, 1928-60)

Saim El Hadj (maybe; composer and playwright from Oran)

Khelifi Ahmed (singer, noted for Bedouin songs)

Nadjat (maybe; singer)

October 17, 1961

It's the anniversary of the Paris police massacre of two to three hundred Algerians. Great article in The Funambulist on the event, and the efforts of female activists to inscribe Paris with reminders of this horrific event.

"On October 17, 1961, a few months before the final victory of the Algerian Revolution, the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) in France organized a massive pacific march in Paris to show their determination against the curfew that the Prefect of police, the infamous Maurice Papon, in agreement with the French government, had taken against their sole persons a few days earlier — during the 1961-1963 state of emergency in France. 20,000 Algerians joined the march which was met with systematic and deadly violence by the Paris police. Between 200 and 300 Algerians were killed by being shot, beaten to death, or thrown into the Seine river; 10,000 were arrested and detained for several days; hundreds were deported to Algeria — some of these deportations were used to hide the deaths."

"Last night, a few hours of the commemoration of the 58th anniversary of the massacre, a small group of female activists visited several of these spaces to graffiti or glue the names of some of the Algerians who were killed that night. In a particularly intense policed and fascist militant environment, they succeeded in paying an homage to the history of Algerian resistance (one that continues today through the antiracist and anticolonial activism) that goes beyond the authorized (yet very important, of course) setting of the 6PM annual gathering on the Saint-Michel bridge. This is crucial as the very discreet official efforts of acknowledgment of the massacre from the Paris municipality and the French state never target those who are responsible for it (Papon, of course, but also the De Gaulle-Debré government, and the police officers themselves)."

Woody Guthrie ("Woody ben Khayyám") in Oran, Algiers

Yesterday I read Maurice El Medioni's book, A Memoir: From Oran to Marseilles (1938-1992 (a terrific resource) and learned this fascinating detail from Ben Mandelson's preface, that Woody Guthrie, who served in the Merchant Marine during World War II, landed in Oran, Algeria in 1943 or 1944. (El Medioni was 15 years old in '43, and Mandelson's fantasy is that the young man might have run into Woody at some point, as he was doing a lot of business with the US military personnel who were in his city. And also learning a lot about US popular music.)

Here's what I was able to find out, with an online search, about Woody's experiences in Algeria, from Will Kaufman's book, Mapping Woody Guthrie, just out from the University of Oklahoma Press.

Amazing, eh, Woody, as one of the "Seamen Three" (the other two: Cisco Houston and Jim Longhi), organizing a public workshop on the relation of Omar Khayyam to the working class movement. Woody known as "Woody ben Khayyam." Woody's song, recorded in the 40s, "The Rubaiyat (excerpt)." And his friend Ahmed Bashir, an American jazz scat singer. I've requested Kaufman's book and Longhi's memoir, Woody, Cisco and Me, from interlibrary loan, and I hope to report back when I learn more. Apparently the trio grew beards on the way to Oran, so they could mingle more readily with the local population in off-limit places and so avoid the MPs.

Here's a link to "The Rubaiyat (excerpts)" and the song lyrics (from this source), © Copyright 1951, 1956, and 1963 (renewed) and 2008 by Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc.

Don't give your money, not one penny spend
To learn the secret of your life, my friend
One little hair divides the false and true
And on that little hair, it starts and ends
One hair, I guess, divides the false and true (the false and true)
Find this one hair no matter what you do (what you do)
This hair will lead you to the drinking room
And to the wives of your great landlord too
I rolled in pain down on that sawdust floor (the drinkin' floor)
I prayed to heaven to open its golden door
I groaned and yelled: How long must I here roll? (roll here)
You must roll here till you are you no more (you no more)
I wasted lots of hours in the hot pursuit
Of this and that argument and dispute
Better to kiss the lip with laughin' grapes
Than eating sad or proud or bitter fruit
I'm glad I went off on my big carouse
And took my second wife into my house
Divorced old dried-up reason out of my bed
Took this daughter of the vine to spouse
What is and is not proof I rule in line (I rule in line)
And up and down by logic I define
I guess you thought I was a deep wise man
I never went deep in anything but wine
My drinkin' door eased open late last late (last night late)
I saw a lady with an angel shape (pretty girl)
She handed me a glass of wisdom juice
I drank it down and found the juice was grape
This grapy juice can prove a billion things
Can make our racial haters dance in rings
Can make our seventy-two fightin' priests and princes
Sing sinful songs, and tease my kings and queens (queens and kings both)
If God roiled my good wine, then would he dare (he wouldn't dare)
To make my viney grape a trap an' a snare
I drink my wine and I bless your sweet red mouth
If wine's a curse, well then, who set it there?

Noura, "Amirouche" (+ a Scopitone)

Isn't the jacket for this 45 rpm amazing?

The song "Amirouche" (listen here), a tribute to Amirouche Aït Hamouda, a hero of the Algerian war of independence. A lieutenant in the Army of National Liberation (ALN) and head of the Third Wilaya, he was killed in battle with the French colonial forces on March 28, 1959.  Read more about him here. The record was released on the Algerian label La Voix Du Globe -- I'm not sure in what year.

Noura (1942-2014) was one of Algeria's great female artists, who recorded over 500 sides, in Arabic, Berber (Kabyle/Taqbaylit) and French and in a variety of genres, in both France and Algeria, between the fifties and the eighties. Read more here.

And please check out this Scopitone from Noura, "Ammi Belkacem."

Chris Silver on Mahieddine Bachetarzi, Dalila Taliana, and Cheikha Aicha La Hebrea

Chris Silver is blogging for Gallica, the digital library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Here he takes up recordings from the thirties by Mahieddine Bachetarzi, Dalila Taliana, and Cheikha Aicha La Hebrea. Remarkable music, great commentary.

On Cheikha Aicha La Hebrea: Cheikha Aicha La Hebrea has left barely an archival trace but a number of her recordings survive on Gallica. What is remarkable about this record is that it reminds that international labels like Pathé were keen to record popular music as much as the Andalusian high art repertoire. In fact, what we have here is one of the many covers of the Algerian Jewish artist Lili Labassi’s wildly popular “Mamak", recorded for Columbia Records in 1930 and which then spread like wildfire across North Africa. Indeed, one French composer at the time noted that every shoeshine boy from Algeria to Morocco was known to sing the tune. Among other things this recording provides us with a sonic glimpse into the North African popular music charts of the 1930s.

Essential listening: Mazouni, from Toukadime

Latest blast from Toukadime, a tribute to Mohamed Mazouni.

Some Cheikha Rimitti 45 RPM Record Jackets

This is one of Rimitti's earliest recordings, if not the earliest (and I have the good luck to own this one). One of the tracks, "Erraï Arraï, was, according to Andy Morgan, her first recording, in 1952, for the French Pathé label. But on a 78 rpm, so I'm not sure when this 45 rpm version was pressed. (It was made in France.) Note she was known at this time as Elrelizania (al-Relizania), due to the fact that she grew up in the town of Rélizane (Ghalīzān in Arabic) in Western Algeria. Side A: "Erraï Arraï" (in Arabic al-ray ya al-ray, or "rai o rai."), may be one of the earliest songs in the tradition with "rai" in the title. (Sorry, I'm not able to translate the lyrics.) The genre in which Rimitti performed at the time, however, was not known as rai but as "al-klām al-hazl" or “light, amusing, trifling, playful speech.” 

The reverse side of the jacket describes the tracks as "Chant Oranais avec flûte." The photo on the jacket suggests "folklore." Side B, "Kheira Sali Anbi" (Khayra Salli ‘Ala al-Nabi) -- I'm not sure how to translate the title. Salli ‘Ala al-Nabi means "prayers on the prophet," but what "khayra" (good, choice) means in this phrase, I do not know. 

But note, however, that this is, at some level, a "religious" song, challenging the notion that became prevalent in the late eighties that rai was quintessentially secular. (The work of Marie Virolle is an excellent guide to the place of religion in rai lyrics of artists like Rimitti.) Both these tracks can be found on the CD, Aux Sources du Rai: Les Cheikhat.

The cover of this 45 also indicates "folklore," and this is how Algerian labels had to market the music post-independence, in the puritanical Boumedienne era, which lasted until 1978. This Rimitti record was put out by Triomphe Musique, based in France. This is not Rimitti's photo on the cover. I've seen no Rimitti release with her own photo on it prior to the late eighties, when she became a star on the rai scene, particularly in France, where she had resided since 1978.

This is a release from the Algerian label El Feth, under the rubric "Chants Folkloriques Oranais." I find curious the decision to use a picture of Djoser's Step Pyramid at Sakkara in Egypt on the cover, rather than a scene of Algeria. Side B, "Touche Mami," is a well-known Rimitti song, and it seems sexually suggestive: "touche mami touche, à droite, à gauche." Which is why the label "folklore" was necessary as a kind of cover for music that was considered vulgar by official state culture.

 

This one is from the French label, La Voix De La Jeunesse, and although the disc itself contains the rubric, "Folklore Oranais," by the time this comes out it seems that the folklore marketed is much more sexualized than that sold under the name Rimitti (or Remitti) in previous years. 

This one is from Voix Nouvelle, a French label that specialized in North African music. When rai cassettes began to be released, it was pretty common for European women to be the face on the cover of releases from female rai singers, the chabas. I've found no links to any recordings of these two songs or any mention of them except for on discogs.com.

I don't know anything about Atlas Records. This seems to be a re-release of "Errai Arrai," from the 1950s. I've not found a version of "Hak Tachroub Hak" anywhere.

This one is really eye-opening, eh? This is apparently from 1980, since it is called "Nouveauté Folk 80." When rai was being marketed as something sexy and outré. I don't find these two tracks anywhere either.

A little more on Mahieddine Bentir

I looked a bit more at the short Algerian TV documentary on Mahieddine Bentir that I linked to in my previous post. (I realize that it's a problem that I can't make too much of Algerian dialect. But I can't control my obsessions.) 

Two things: First, there is a reference to a film that Bentir starred in, called Fous de musique or غرام الموسيقي

screenshot from the documentary

It's from the early sixties, filmed prior to independence, a musical, no doubt with some of the rock'n'roll that Bentir became famous for in the late fifties and early sixties. 

Second, please check out Bentir doing rock'n'roll, in 1959, on Algerian television, in the documentary, starting at 4:00. It's very lively, Bentir's dancing -- he does a couple of flips at around 5:00 -- strong backing by a couple sax players, trumpeter, piano and drums. Quite amazing.

Finally, I found, courtesy the blog of the great Algerian music scholar Hadj Miliani, an article about Bentir, from the magazine Femmes Nouvelles, published in Algeria (April 10, 1961). 

There is a lot of information about Bentir's life (born in 1934, in the commune of Ménnerville, grew up in Algiers, worked for the PTT (Postes, télégraphes et téléphones). When he played guitar and sang for some of his friends at the PTT and one of them helped get him in touch with the RTF (Radiodiffusion Télévision Française) and he appeared on the show "Rendez-vous à 13 heures" of Françoise Espel and Jacque Bados. He performed with a band called Orchestre Chenouf, composed of musicians with full-time jobs (station master, anesthesiologist, cabinet maker), who must be the ones who appear in the documentary (and in the clip on my previous blog). 

According to the article, Bentir composed in a variety of genres: "Negro" spirituals, waltzes, jazz, chansons réalistes. And it claims he was the first to launch rock'n'roll in "Oriental" music. His records sold in Alexandria, Rabat, and throughout Algeria. 

As of the date of the article, he had recorded four songs: "Youp! Ya Aoud" (rock), "Sinbad et Amira Cha-Cha" ("cha cha cha oriental"), "Ya mama chérie" (cha cha cha bolero) and "Anaya Bouhali" (style not specified. 

He was also translating some French popular songs into Arabic (I don't know whether these were ever recorded other than "Ana bouhali") and was preparing songs for a singer named Samira -- cha cha cha, waltz, and jazz. 

A more recent account of Bentir, from January 2018 (Reporters: Quotidien national d'information -- Algiers) reports on an hommage to Bentir, and states that Bentir's rock'n'roll song "Scooter" dates from 1955 (there is no mention of the song in the 1961 article) and that the songs Bentir performed on television (see the documentary were "Cha Cha Cha Chechia" and "Anaya Bouhali," a remake of Darío Moreno's 1959 recording, "Le marchand de bonheur" -- this is the clip on my previous blog post. (Moreno was a Turkish singer who made his career in France in the fifties and sixties.)

This article also claims that Bentir made some banners attacking colonialism and because he was sought after by the security forces, he took refuge in Tunisia with the liberation army. Perhaps, although it seems somewhat unlikely, given that the article cited above was published in April 1961. It states that the musical Bentir was to appear in (certainly Fous de musique) was to be filmed in May and June, and we can see from the movie poster reproduced in the Bentir documentary, that the film was in fact released. Algeria gained its independence in March 1962, so the timing does not seem right. But even if Bentir did not flee to Tunisia for anti-colonial activity, he nonetheless continued to enjoy a musical career in Algeria after indpendence.

Dalida in Algiers, 1965, on the same bill as Mahieddine Bentir

Oh, to have seen this show in November, 1965 in Algiers, just three years after Algeria gained its independence! On the 11th anniversary of the launching of the Algerian revolution, organized by Algeria's national tourism office (ONAT). The divine Dalida, born in Shobra, Cairo, and a star throughout the Mediterranean.

One guesses of course that Dalida played her greatest hits, including those that hit the charts in France in 1965: 

"Viva la papa" (#10)

"La danse de Zorba" (#8)

"Bonsoir mon amour" (#5)

And my favorite from that year, "Amore scusami" (#13)

I find it quite amazing that Dalida was welcomed to Algeria in 1965, given that according to wikipedia, and other sources, Dalida had performed for the French colonial troops in Algiers in summer 1958. It's rather amazing how forgiving the Algerians were, given that hundreds of thousands of Algerians (the figure is not agreed upon, but perhaps Horne's number, 700,000, is a plausible number) were killed in the war of liberation (1954-62). Here's a photo of Dalida with one of the colonial soldiers, snapped by a fan.

In thinking about Dalida in Algeria, I came across an article by Barbara Lebrun, "Daughter of the Mediterranean, docile European: Dalida in the 1950s" (Journal of European Popular Culture 4(1), 2013). It argues that the Egyptian-born singer's Mediterranean identity was carefully crafted, as her career was launched in France in 1956, to occlude her origins: "Because Dalida’s early success in France coincided with the Algerian War, the singer’s oriental provenance was strictly ignored, and her ‘Mediterranean’ identity instead remapped onto the northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea." (Note: I've only read the abstract, and am waiting to receive the full article.) 

Apparently by 1965 her handlers thought it was okay for her to be seen as associated with Algeria. But note that she did not record in Arabic until 1977, with "Salma ya salama."

What really excited me about this concert was the fact that she was on the bill with Mohieddine Bentir. I've blogged about him previously, but let me both recap and add some more details. Born in 1930, Bentir recorded a terrific rock'n'roll song, "Scooter," apparently in 1955.  

In 1959, there was "Ana Bouhali," a cha-cha cha, done Cuban style, very, very hot. Check this out, from Algerian television, broadcast during the colonial era. (Added November 4: It's a remake, in Arabic, of a song recorded that same year by Dario Moreno, "Le marchand de bonheur," the Turkish singer who made his career in France during the fifties and sixties.

Later, he was doing twists, most famously, "Optimiste Twist," from 1964. I mention some other tracks on my earlier blog.

If you check these three tracks, you could get an idea about what a terrific performer Bentir was, and, wow, I just can't imagine (again) how cool it would have been to see him opening for Dalida in Algeria. 

If your Algerian Arabic is good (and mine is minimal), check out this report on Bentir from Algerian television, broadcast in 1994. I wish I could track down more.

Addendum (11/3/18): Kareem tweeted this at me: Bentir talks about his show with Dalida in the video (at 15:00). When they went to dinner she asked him to ask if there were fava beans. A real Egyptian I guess :-).

Record covers: Boussouar El Maghnaoui

Record covers of previously obscure recordings are much more readily available these days, due to various sources: discogs.com, ebay auctions, and FaceBook groups. This was vinyl single from pop-rai singer Boussouar El Maghnaoui was recently auctioned on ebay. Unfortunately I was not able to secure it -- such recordings, from Algeria in the seventies, when pop-rai was being invented, have become eminently collectible.

Boussouar El Maghnaoui was a second-tier figure in the pop-rai scene that developed in western Algeria from the mid to late 1970s, less well remembered than figures like Messaoud Bellemou, Belkacem Bouteldja, or Boutaïba Sghir. On his recordings he was usually backed by Groupe El Azhar, from Oran. Other lesser (but nonetheless important) lights backed up on pop-rai recordings during this period include Gana El Maghnaoui, Hocine Chabatti (AKA Cheb Hocine), Boutaïba Sghir's brother Afif Bashir and Mohamed Mazouzi. El Maghnaoui hailed from Oujda in eastern Morocco, symptomatic of the substantial cultural contact across the border between the east of Morocco and the west of Algeria. (During the colonial period many Moroccans migrated to work in western Algeria during grape harvest season.)

I don't have access to these two songs from El Maghnaoui, but there are several that you can find on YouTube, including this one.

It is very much in the mode of the pop-rai produced in the same period by Bellemou and his group, based in Aïn Témouchent, and my guess would be that Bellemou set the standard which others then imitated. According to maghrebunion, who posted the video, it features Ghana El Maghnaoui on trumpet (playing Bellemou style) and "Kassem" from Oran on saxophone. 

Check these out as well, courtesy the blog Phocéephone.

Great resources: Taoufik Bestandji, maalouf, Constantine, (Cheikh) Raymond Leyris

If you are interested in 'Arab-Andalusian' music and particularly malouf, the variety played in Constantine (and Tunisia), and if you're interested in Cheikh Raymond Leyris, as well as those who've played a major role in keeping this tradition alive, please check out Taoufik Bestandji's website, it is a major resource. Bestandji comes from a musical family, and his grandfather, Cheikh Abdelkrim Bestandji, was one of Raymond Leyris' teachers. Bestandji is probably best known internationally for the recording of Raymond Leyris' music that he did with Enrico Macias in 2000, Hommage à Cheikh Raymond. (I wrote about Raymond and Enrico and the album in  “Against Hybridity: The Case of Enrico Macias/Gaston Ghrenassia,” published in Rebecca L. Stein and Ted Swedenburg, ed., Palestine, Israel, and the Politics of Popular Culture (2005). 

Bestandji is also an accomplished singer and oud player in his own right, so please check this out too.

Highly recommended listening: Bachir Sahraoui

A friend recently posted a link to my blog, which prompted me to think that I should put up some new content. Resolution to self: more blog content! Resolution #2: be satisfied with short posts!

The highly recommended music blog Wallahi Le Zein! recently posted this, a tribute to the Algerian singer Bashir Sahraoui, and a link to mp3 tracks of one of his cassettes. I was not familiar with Bashir, who was born in the Algerian Sahara, fought with POLISARIO against the Spanish occupiers of Spanish Sahara, and then turned to a musical career. He does music in the Bedouin style, backed only by reed flutes (gasbas). It is beautiful, gorgeous music. Do download it. And watch this.

More pop-rai with Hamani Hadjoum Tmouchenti & Messaoud Bellemou, courtesy toukadime

Check out Toukadime's latest broadcast here, which features a track from this Hamani record, also featuring of course, Messaoud Bellemou.

Please see my very long post on pop-rai, here.

More Enrico Macias Orientalia

When Gaston Ghrenassia left Algeria for France in 1961, he hoped to continue his musical career by playing the ma'louf repertoire of his master, Cheikh Raymond Leyris, in the company of his father Sylvain, who had accompanied the cheikh on violin. But French audiences greeted their performances with hostility and racism. So Gaston opted to try to make a career for himself by playing a more mainstream and acceptable genre. In Constantine, he had not only mastered ma'louf, learned through his apprenticeship of Cheikh Raymond, but he also had performed French variety music, particularly the sort of Mediterranean-inflected variety performed by the likes of Luis Mariano, Charles Aznavour and Dalida. In addition to playing with Cheikh Raymond, as a teenager Gaston joined a gypsy musical ensemble in Constantine. The band was led by a singer named Enrico, and in the group Gaston was known as “little Enrico.” While on the boat taking him into exile from Algiers to Marseille, Gaston composed a song about his sorrow over leaving Algeria, called “Adieu Mon Pays.” He recorded the song for Pathé-Marconi in 1962, adopting the recording name Enrico. He planned to use the last two syllables of his family name, Nassia, as his second name, but the Pathé-Marconi secretary with whom he spoke on the phone transcribed it incorrectly, so “Adieu Mon Pays” was released under the name Enrico Macias.

In October 1962, the song was broadcast on a national radio program focusing on the pieds noirs, the European Algerian settlers who left Algeria after it gained independence. It became an immediate sensation, selling 50,000 copies in just a few days, and Enrico Macias became the singer, in France, of the pieds noirs, who had only just left what they regarded as their “pays.”

During the course of his career from the sixties through the eighties, Enrico performed and recorded music that was frequently tinged with Andalusian sounds. On occasion, in concert, he would play ‘ud for one number, or feature belly dancers, or spotlight his father Sylvain on Andalusian violin for one song. He did not feel able to experiment in this vein a great deal, and the Andalusian element remained at the level of frills and embellishments rather than forming the musical basis for his work. Too emphatic an Arabic sound invariably incited negative reactions from French audiences. But if there were pieds noirs in the audience, they would greet Macias's use of Andalusian features (and even vocals in Arabic) with enthusiastic applause and shouts of approval.

In 1972 he put out the album À La Face de l'Humanité, which included the track, "La Fête Orientale." You can listen here. Enrico sings in French, and only adds "Arab" vocal embellishments at one point, at around 2 minutes into the song. But the instrumental opening of the song sounds like it is the start of an Arabic song, and it has this feel at the end as well. And right before Enrico shifts briefly into Arabic mode, we also hear very "Eastern" sounding ululations.

In March 1972, Enrico performed the song on television, in a quite different version, which you can see here.

The version here is twice as long as the original. And it opens with a slow, improvised introduction, known as the istikhbar or mawwal that is typical of Andalusian music. It starts with a refrain on violin from Enrico's father Sylvain Ghrenassia, some improvised oud playing from Enrico, a bit of improvisation on the qanun, and then vocals from Enrico, singing in French about the "fête oriental" but in Arabic style. The ensemble is a typical traditional Andalusian one, and the players are all dressed up in fancy "Oriental" style, seated on the floor in traditional style. The set has all the trappings of a staged "Oriental" scene as well. After the mawwal, Enrico proceeds to perform "La Fête Oriental" as he recorded it, but with the backing of an Andalusian orchestra.

The lyrics are as follows (grabbed from here). 

Alléluia,  c'est la fête orientale
Venez chez moi, je suis heureux
Laissez venir tous mes amis, tous mes parents
Et pour qu'il n'y ait pas d'oubli
Laissez la porte ouverte
Alléluia, que les foulards des femmes
Alléluia, dansent de joie

Alléluia, il faut de la musique
Car on est là pour s'amuser
Les musiciens ont dans leur cœur nos souvenirs
Et sous leurs doigts c'est le bonheur qui rythme la musique
Alléluia, suivez bien la cadence
Alléluia, des cris de joie

Alléluia que le festin commence
Tout le monde est là, n'attendez pas
Que l'on apporte les plateaux chargés de fruits
Une montagne de gâteaux, du vin et des galettes
Alléluia, c'est la fête orientale
Restez chez moi toute la nuit
Alléluia c'est la fête orientale
Alléluia toute la nuit

The lyrics could describe any kind of "Oriental" feast day, Jewish or Muslim. Note that the women are described as wearing foulards, or headscarves -- something that both Jewish and Muslims would have worn on traditional feast days.

And here is another TV appearance of Enrico on oud and his father on violin, doing another "Oriental" number. Unfortunately I'm unable to identify the song. 

Update, May 22, 2018: It's "La Folle Espérance, a song based on a folkloric Arab melody that Cheikh Raymond used to play. The song's lyrics praised Sadat's November 1977 visit to Jerusalem, and asserted, “we [Muslims and Jews] are brothers.”

A list of songs in Arabic that Enrico has performed or recorded over the years can be found here. Some are available for listening. Unfortunately the information is not very detailed. I intend to do more hunting and research.

Old photos of Cheb Khaled

I'm in the middle of trying to finish off an article about pop-rai, and hunting for photos of Cheb Khaled and his first band, Les Cinq Étoiles (Ennoujoum El Khams). It was modeled after the Moroccan neo-folk bands like Nass El Ghiwane that were so popular in Morocco, and then were disbanded after Morocco invaded and occupied Spanish Sahara in 1975. Khaled formed the group in 1971 or 1972, performing Moroccan neo-folk material, but by 1974 he was already doing his own material, with "Trig Lycée."

In the course of my research I came across this photo:

I found it here -- a YouTube video created for the posting of a Cheb Khaled song called "Rayha Ghaydana." 

The posting suggests the recording was released in 1979. A Khaled discography that I found (where? I now can't remember) states that this song is from Cheb Khaled's second cassette release, with the name Deblet Galbi. Khaled's first recording (Trig Lycée -- a cassette with four songs) came out in 1974, so this seems like a long gap, as "Trig Lycée" was a hit, but...I just don't know. The musicians shown here could be the ones who played on the Deblet Galbi recording. On some of the tracks, you also hear a guitar. Khaled, of course, plays accordion. Were these guys in Les Cinq Étoiles? Did they also appear on the Trig Lycée release?

Still hunting...I do love the fact that people post photos with YouTube vids.

Very cool Cheikha Rimitti 45" jacket

Isn't this great? First off, in Arabic the cover says al-Cheikh al-Rimitti, that is, the male form, and not Cheikha. And in Latin script, it says only "Rimitti." Now, it's not as if the record company (Oasis, based in Algiers) who put out this 45" didn't know who the artist was. The record itself says Cheikha Rimitti.

As does the reverse side of the record jacket.

Was the record company trying to entice buyers by tricking them into thinking the recording was by a male singer? Who knows?

(The source for the cover is here, from Jeremy Phillips, who made a shopping trip for vinyl in Morocco in 2014, and posted a mix based on his findings on Psych Funk. You can listen to the B-Side of the Rimitti release, "Zoubida Tendmi." It's straight-up Algerian cheikha music, known at the time as elklâm elhezal.)

The other cool thing about the cover is that the illustration is a cartoon, not a photo. I've not seen a Cheikha Rimitti record jacket with a cartoon on it before, nor do I recall in fact other rai recordings or for that matter, other Algerian recordings with a cartoon. Other Cheikha Rimitti record jackets I've seen have photos, and with possibly one exception, photos that are not of the Cheikha but of another woman, usually blonde and Western. Like this one (from the Casaphone label, based in Casablanca and Paris).

I did also find this recording, which features a drawing and not a photo. It's the jacket for "Ya Ouled El Djazaïr," also from Oasis -- but it's not a cartoon. This release, celebrating Algeria's independence, is from shortly after the FLN tossed out the French from Algeria, during the brief period of revolutionary ferment, when female artists like Cheikha Rimitti were not considered unrespectable, a period which ended in 1965 when Boumedienne toppled Ben Bella. You can listen to one version here, another here. I've no idea whether either of these are the original recording.

I posted about the "Balek Balek" record and someone commented that they had seen record jackets with the name "Cheikha Remettez" -- the spelling based on the story about how the cheikha got her name, ordering another drink at a saint's festival sometime in the 1940s. "Remettez la tournée," give me another drink. I'd love to see these.

And just for the record, I came across another photo of the Cheikha. She is the one with the tambourine. (I have to say, based on other photos I've seen, I'm not certain it is her.) The source is this blog post.

Star Trek Beyond marginalia: Safia Boutella

I've not yet seen Star Trek Beyond but I plan to. Safia Boutella, who plays the alien scavenger Jaylah, has received quite good reviews.

Safia Boutella, born in Bab El Oued, Algiers, is an Algerian dancer and actress. You can read about the high points of her career here.

She is the daughter of Algerian jazz musician Safy Boutella, who is best known to me due to the fact that he co-produced with Martin Meissonier, and and collaborated on, Cheb Khaled's great 1988 album Kutché. (He's shown on the cover reclining in a chair.) I have a longer post where I explain the context in which this album -- the first Khaled album produced in France -- is made, but briefly, the story is that members of the liberal wing of the Algerian government paid for its production and sent Khaled to France to produce it. It was not a major seller but it is the prelude to Khaled's 1992 breakthrough with "Didi" and the album Khaled.

Safia has worked with Spanish choreographer Blanca Li (born Blanca Gutierrez) since age 17 (she is now 34).

It was Bianca Li who recruited Gnawa musician Hassan Hakmoun in 1986 to appear in a collaboration called Trio Gna & Nomadas, a "fusion" project involving a Gnawa group (including Hakmoun) and a Spanish dance group (flamenco, modern) led by Bianca's partner Etienne Li, and in which she danced. You can see a video here, with a number of photos. Trio Gna & Nomadas traveled to the US in 1987, and Hakmoun stayed, in New York, where he has been ever since. He put out his terrific first album, Gift of the Gnawa in 1992. And he performed together with Adam Rudolph at the MESA meetings in San Antonio in November 1991, which is when I first became familiar with him.

So, the connections: Star Trek - Khaled - Hassan Hakmoun. There you have it.

One more: Blanca Li also collaborated with the late great Gnawa artist Abdenbi Binizi, who sang on her project "Blanco Y Pan." Check out the CD by Gnawa Halwa called Rhabaouine.

Review of Aziza Brahim's "Abbar el Hamada"

Back in late May, I reviewed Spain-based Sahrawi singer Aziza Brahim's fourth album, Abbar el Hamada, for RootsWorld. Read it here. And check out "Calles de Dajla," from the album, below.