Contemporary "Oriental" music

[Eva Broman <evbr4965...>]

Hi everyone,

Concerning the question about "Oriental" music, I didn't really catch if the 
music considered for classification is traditional or modern....something which 
might have some bearing on the kind of answers you might get! My main point of 
reference when it comes to Jewish music is contemporary "Oriental" pop music 
(and that's about the only thing I ever post about here, so forgive me for 
repeating myself!;-)). If you go to a web site like israel-music, you'll see 
that the style of music that is usually referred to as "musica Mizrahit" falls 
under the title "Oriental", while spanish-language music goes under the title 
"Ladino" (and strangely enough, there is also a category "Jewish", which would 
imply that "Oriental" is somehow *not* Jewish...). On the other hand, 
"Oriental" lumps together both old-time and pop music-for example, you'll find 
both Moroccan wedding music and the latest hits from Sarit Hadad in the 
Oriental section. 

To complicate matters even more, much Israeli popular "oriental" music does not 
have, at least to these ears, a very pronounced oriental sound; for example, 
the early records by people like Shimi Tavori (who is Yemenite) or the 
contributions to the Oriental Song Festival sound a lot like the Italian/French 
"schlager" music of the era, with a slight oriental "leavening". On the other 
hand, you have someone like nineties artist Ofer Levi (of Turkish/Syrian 
background) whose music is very close to Arab music. It seems as though the 
"oriental" tag really refers to the artists (most of whom are of Yemenite or 
North African descent) and/or the main audiences for this style (which probably 
fit into the Iraeli "edot ha-mizrakh"?), rather than any specific musical 
characteristics. If there is any defining musical characteristic, to my ears it 
would be the melismatic style of singing, which is clearly different from the 
singing style of Israeli mainstream/rock artists, while the musical backing may 
differ quite a lot from from era to era and from artist to artist (until quite 
lately, when I have the impression of a kind of general "sound " which has 
become a tad too homogenized/poppy for my tastes!). 

Another defining feature of many CDs by "Oriental" artists is that they mix 
quite a lot of styles on their CDs; on some tracks they pay hommage to their 
background by singing traditional Yemenite, Kurdish etc. tunes, then you get 
the ubiquitous Greek and Turkish covers, and after that some straight pop 
balladry. There are also artists, like Shlomi Saranga, who make a good living 
recording only Greek music, in the Greek language-in what category would you 
put their music??-well, in Israeli it's considered "Oriental"!;-) 

(Just as an aside-in an interview with Yehuda Poliker's producer, said producer 
stated that he was dismayed at first when he learned that Poliker wanted to 
record an album with Greek bouzouki songs. I had to admit that I was rather 
flabbergasted by this statement, until I realized that the bouzouki in the 
minds of members of the Israeli rock establishment probably was considered "low 
class" because of its connection to "musica Mizrahit"!)

In fact, Amy Horowits has a whole list of various categories of Musica Mizrahit 
styles in her dissertation....something which makes categorization even more 
difficult, I imagine!

Maybe modern-day "Oriental" music, unlike the more undiluted (?) traditional 
musics, is really a hybrid of styles-which makes it difficult to categorize 
along traditional lines. But then again, maybe traditional music is what you're 
dealing with-which makes my long ramblings quite superfluous!;-))

I am aware of the problems concerning labels such as "traditional" and "ethnic" 
music, but I hope you'll understand what I mean. 

All the best, Eva