Re: Judeo Arabic/North African music

[Francesco Spagnolo <yuval...>]

>Another in the Tresors de la Chanson Judeo-Arabes series:
>El Kahlaoui Tounsi
>Melodie 79109-2


And here's the contact info for the editor of the series:

Michel LEVY, Paris
phone (office): +33 1 49237770
mobile: +33 6 14277644


As for the content of the series, you were right: even if one knew Hebrew,
there would be no way to detect any specific Jewish content. BUT: as I have
been told by several non-Jewish Algerians (most of the musicians in the
series are Algerian "pied-noirs"...), everybody in Algeria (and Tunisia)
simply knew that the musicians were Jewish, and that for at least two main
reasons. First, the topics of the songs (mostly, love) were dealt with in a
more "liberated" way than in songs sung by Muslims performers; second, even
female singers were more free that their Muslim collegues.
In other words, what was perceived as tipically "Jewish" about these
musicians was the fact that, through their larger freedom of expressing
themselves, they ended up giving voice to the less free parts of the
society they lived in, which was of course mostly Muslim.

Among others Judeo-Arabic recordings, remember another Piranha cd (1996),
by Algerian pianist and singer Maurice El Medioni (et son Pianorientale),
which stars also David Kracauer and Frank London... the songs are in Arabic
and French, often mixed in the same song.

Best,
Francesco
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                             YUVAL ITALIA
                Centro di Studi sulla Musica Ebraica
           The Italian Center for the Study of Jewish Music

                    dr. Francesco Spagnolo, Director

via della Guastalla,19    20122 Milano Italy  tel/fax +39 02 55014977
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