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Paul Bowles needs no introduction. Certain- ly not since the film of The Sheltering Sky brought him back into recognition. He was always more than a writer, but resisted cate- gorisation. As a composer, he trained under Aaron Copland, with whom he first visited Tangier at the suggestion of Gertrude Stein. He was also a poet and jobbing journalist but only in recent decades have we become aware of Bowles’ interest in the music of his adopted country and the several field trips he made to record it.
The best known are a series of 1959 trips for the Library of Congress. These were even- tually released on LP in 1972 and form the basis of the four-CD set, Music of Morocco: Recorded by Paul Bowles, 1959 (Dust-to- Digital, DTD-46). This lavish box includes a 120-page well-illustrated, hand-tooled book, with sleevenotes by Bowles among others. It does more than just replicate the original LPs. Many of the recordings are now present in fuller versions, and occasional items have been substituted from the LPs for a better example elsewhere. So the idea of this being somehow ‘complete’ – in either the Library of Congress sense, or of Bowles’ Moroccan recordings (he also recorded a 1965 series with Brion Gysin), needs some qualification.
Bowles clearly regarded the Berbers as the ‘true’ music of Morocco and the discs reflect this. Echoing the LPs, two CDs are given over to Highlands – The Berbers, and two under the more ambivalent title of Low- lands – Influent Strains. The latter includes wider Arabic and sub-Saharan influences which Bowles needlessly worried at the time were in danger of becoming dominant. He also recorded Jewish music: a Sephardic song from Meknes and a cantor from Essaouira with Bowles suggesting that the archaic can- torial style may have been handed down within families from Spanish times. And he recorded music from the Arabic Andalusian diaspora in the north of the country.
Bowles never pretended to be an ethno- musicologist, but considering that some of the recordings were made hurriedly at reli- gious festivals and with occasionally confused information on the participants, the notes are more than adequate for the time. They also reveal a shrewd and considerable experi- ence of the country.
He was interested in the recording pro- cess per se, but some of his idiosyncracies still shine through. He appeared to dislike the bendir (frame drum) as being too dominant, or difficult to record in Berber music and occa- sionally upset musical tradition by having it shuffled off to one side. Or by asking musi- cians, for instance a rhaita (oboe) player, a gnawa guimbri musician and an exponent of the qsbah (a low flute favoured by camel drivers) to record solo. This was unheard of at the time. Nor was he slow in voicing his opin- ions on the songs and performances. On the song Qim Rhori recorded in Khenifra, he wrote: “Personally I found the combination highly displeasing, but this was maybe because I was aware of the music’s basic degeneracy.”
Artefacts don’t come cheap. And although these recordings are no longer as definitive as they once might have been, they’re of immense interest and form an invaluable set.
Presentation is also a strong point on a
four-CD reissue set of works by the musician Sami al-Shawwa (1885-1965). Al-Shawwa
Paul Bowles
was born in Cairo to a deeply-rooted Aleppan musical family and much of his early life was spent between the two cities. Prince Of The Violin (Amar P1131190) documents his career, both in Cairo, where he accompanied many of the greats including Umm Kulthum and Abd- al-Wahab, but also in the Levant and on trips to the USA. The first two CDs are of pre-1927 recordings, while others are from later discs, radio reels, tapes and private sessions. Al- Shawwa was particularly known for his play- ing of the taqsim and solo passages, and for raising the profile of instrumental music. He was also involved in reviving and assimilating various Levantine and Arabic music forms and structures. His melismatic style and the high standards of performance of the smaller ensembles make it of essential interest, and it includes an informative tri-lingual booklet.
The passionate young Syrian vocalist and
oud player, Waed Bouhassoun, is a more recent discovery. On her second album for the French Buda label, La Voix De La Passion (Buda 4793666), she accompanies herself on oud and on some fine duets by the ney (flute) player, Moslem Rahal. Both have played with Jordi Savall’s Hesperion XXI ensemble and are included on his current work Granada (reviewed below). Waed’s sources are the rich Nabatean poetry of her own Druze roots in southern Syria and the more classical styles credited to early classical Arabic poets from the 7th to the 12th Centuries. Her rich voice is immediately defined by the opening pieces, a patriotic Druze song and an a cappella song of separation. Her varied repertoire includes traditional songs, two contrasting songs about Damascus (one by Farid al-Atrash and the other 7th Century) or the modulated vocal of a camel driver’s chant from the Jebel Druze. Highlights are too numerous, but might include a traditional song about Aleppo, a mystic song from the 7th Century performed as a duet with Rahal, or her gentle treatment of a song by an Algarve Andalusian poet.
The Spanish early music maestro, Jordi
Savall, likes big projects. None comes much bigger than re-creating 500 years of music for Granada 1013-1502 (Alia Vox AVSA 9915). The project features some eighteen musicians – a typically expanded version of Hesperion XXI and La Capella Reial de Catalunya – and was recorded in concert within the Alhambra in 2013. Few are as well-versed in the early interplay between Spanish, Moorish and Jew-
ish music within the mediæval Iberian penin- sula, although much remains speculative in the early centuries when music was written in neumes and historical references are few. What differences might there have been between music in the earlier Umayyad court in Cordoba – where music was admittedly ini- tially frowned upon but rose to become a highly-prized art – and the later courts of Granada? But plotting the musical selections against the chronology is not always fruitful. I found myself listening with a somewhat Eurocentric early music sensibility rather than getting a feel for the way the music has played out in the more austere Andalusian traditions in the Maghreb or its influence within the wider Levantine or Arabic spheres. The CD comes with a 280-page multilingual booklet and some interesting essays not just on the chronological history of Granada but also on the thorny issue of the coexistence of the three faiths in mediæval Spain. Highly recommended, regardless of view.
Lament For Syria (Etnisk Musikklubb EM116) is in its own way a comment on the life of exile and improvisation common to many musicians. The Syrian sufi musician, Jan Ibro Khelil, is now based in Norway where he sings and plays tambour (long-necked lute) and daf (frame drum) with a small group of Norwegian, Iranian and Nepali musicians. Khelil’s own backstory is some- thing we aren’t hearing a lot about in the current situation. His father was Kurdish and his mother Jewish. The material consists largely of both contemporary and traditional Kurdish or Mesopotamian songs and the occasional Sufi song. There are some nice pieces, largely vocal, that bring out Khelil’s expressive voice. But the jew’s harp sound (Svein Westad) occasionally seems at odds and I feel that the recording might have been substantially improved by a larger, and more obviously Middle-Eastern, instrumentation.
The Asil Ensemble takes a more jazzy approach. The group features twelve musi- cians on a total of fifteen instruments. Bass and soprano oud, violin, cello and percussion- ists. Tawahhud (‘autism’) (Amar P1131193A) is recorded as a single piece of formal suites and improvisations. The effect can occasional- ly be over-indulgent and while there is a case for a more jazzy approach to Middle Eastern music, this may not be the best example.
Tamer Abu Ghazaleh shakes things up a little. This young Cairo-based Palestinian singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist adds an Arabic alternative rock flavour with a Zappa-esque take on Arabic music, jazz, cabaret and rock. Thulth (Arabic for third) (Mostakell MST0002) includes everything from a poem by a 7th Century Bedouin to a more contemporary one on manholes. Quite innovative musically, but ‘alternative’ is defi- nitely the word, even down to the packaging: a CD loosely slipped inside a poster.
www.dust-digital.com www.amar-foundation.org www.budamusique.com
www.alia-vox.com (Distributed by Harmonia Mundi)
www.etniskmusikklubb.no www.mostakell.com
The Amar Foundation, Buda Musique and Etnisk Musikklubb are distributed in the UK by Discovery Records
discovery-records.com
Phil Wilson
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