Sami Abu Shumays

In March of this year, the Brooklyn Arts Council (www.brooklynartscouncil.org) produced an amazing month-long festival featuring almost all of the performers of Arabic music in the New York City area, called Brooklyn Maqam.  Zikrayat, my group, was honored to perform, alongside Safaafir, at Joe's Pub, on March 20th.

This is a complete recording of our set.  performing are:
myself, violin
Dimitri Mikelis, oud & accordion
Tareq Abboushi, buzuq
Johnny Farraj, percussion
Nikolai Ruskin, percussion

and featuring vocalists Salah Rajab (2,3) and Gaida (5,6,7)

Here's the program:

1.  Pickles, by Tareq Abboushi

2.  Gameel Gamal, by Farid el-Atrash
originally sung by Farid el-Atrash in the film Lahn il-Khulud ("Immortal Melody")

3.  Ana Lak Ala Tool, by Mohamed Abdel-Wahhab
originally sung by Abdel-Halim Hafiz in the film Ayyam wu Layali ("Days and Nights")

4.  Yasmeen, by Hussein Ahmed Ali
a dance piece for Naima Akif from the film Tamr Hinna

5.  Lughat iz-Zuhuur ("Il-Wardi Gameel"), by Zakaria Ahmed
originally sung by Umm Kulthum in the film Fatima

6.  Imta Hataaraf, by Mohamed el-'Asabgi
originally sung by Esmahan in the film Gharam wu Intiqam ("Love and Revenge")

7.  Min Hubbi Fiik Ya Gaari, by Atia Sharara
originally sung by Hurriyya Hassan in the film Ahibbak Ya Hassan ("I love you Hassan")

Before you listen, please take a minute and vote for us (Zikrayat) for the
2008 Independent Music Awards--we need your votes to win!
vote here: www.musiciansatlas.com
see the post below for more details.

This is our most recent performance from Alwan www.alwanforthearts.org
last Saturday night.  We had a great crowd and I think it was our best show yet!  The lineup was:

myself, on violin, vocals, rababa
Bridget Robbins, Nay
Tareq Abboushi, Buzuq, vocals
Dimitri Mikelis, Oud
Johnny Farraj, Riqq, vocals
Nikolai Ruskin, Tabla, vocals
     with
Salah Ragab on vocals
Gaida on vocals
     and
Dances by Dameshe, Leela, Nahara, and Yowalka

This is the first set of the show, and it featured Salah singing with us for the first time--he sang three songs beautifully; "Gameel Gamal," the second of the three, was really amazing. . . so full of soul and tarab; it's hard to believe he's performing for the first time--he's only 19, and has never sang publicly before this event!

Here's the set:
1.  Doulab Zanjaran   --(composed by myself)
2.  Pickles --(composed by Tareq Abboushi
3.  "Naima veil"--a dance number we found on an old film of Naima Akif called "Ahibbak Ya Hassan"; Dameshe did a solo to this number.
4.  "Ya-msahar eini" --a song for the pop singer Rami Ayash, featuring Salah Ragab
5.  "Gameel Gamal"--a song by Farid el-Atrash, featuring Salah; Nahara did a Shamadan solo (flaming candles on her head) to this number.
6.  "Yana Yana"--a song for Sabah, featuring Salah
7.  "Mafeesh Filoos"--a song for Lebanese singer Nasri Shams id-Din; with myself on vocals;  Dameshe, Leela, and Yowalka performed a group choreography to this number.

Enjoy!

Amir ElSaffar, Iraqi-American Jazz Trumpet player, Singer and Santur player, discusses his newly released CD Two Rivers. He talks about the different ways he has combined Iraqi Music (of the Baghdad Maqam tradition) with Jazz in these pieces, and talks a little about his history with both kinds of music.

The CD is available now on Pi Recordings and at amazon.com

for more information on Amir and the album, please visit the Two Rivers myspace page and Amir's Website: www.amirelsaffar.com

CD release party at Joe's pub, Monday Oct. 22nd, 9:30pm

Anne Elise and I chat about The global youth village
http://globalyouthvillage.org/,
where we were teaching in July; and the Jefferson Center
http://jeffcenter.org/
in Roanoke, VA, where she is the educational programs coordinator

The young students at the Global Youth Village play 3 pieces (doulab bayati, doulab sikah, doulab hijaz) they learned by ear in their first week, and talk about how learning arabic music is different than the kinds of music they do. For more information on Global Youth Village, please visit: www.globalyouthvillage.org

This is the last podcast from last year's lark camp... as I depart for this year's camp...  The incomparable Brian Steeger, one of the true characters from lark camp, plays some music, makes us laugh, and gives his philosophical reflections on music.

Recorded after Lark Camp last year.  Mark and Ling Shien are a husband and wife musician team based in Marin County, CA, in the Bay area.  They've just released their latest CD "Spice Box" and updated their website:

www.helmmusic.com

In this podcast we highlight their musical diversity and chat about their history together.

Bridget Robbins plays nay and flute; we play a turkish piece, a baroque flute duet, she plays an armenian piece, and we play some Arabic tunes... and some nice conversation...

In honor of the release of our new CD, "Zikrayat: Live at Lotus,"
I have made a podcast featuring many of the pieces from the original performances that I had decided not to include on the CD.  My wife robin and I talk about the ensemble, the CD, and some of what we've done over the last year.

You can purchase the CD online at CDBaby and Amazon.  To those who do: thanks for supporting our dream!

If you haven't seen our website yet, please visit www.zikrayatmusic.com

The podcast is in two parts, see part B below.

In the second half of the podcast, robin and I talk a little about our theatrical ambitions, our way of working together, and I talk about how I mastered the CD, with six 1-minute excerpts of "Yamma-l-amar" illustrating the steps I took.

This is a lecture/demo on microtones.

I demonstrate the wide variety of microtones in use in Arabic music (by my count, at least 12 within a half step);

I explain:
1. the problems with describing the microtones used in arabic maqams as "quarter-tones"--since they are not exactly a quarter of anything.
2. the problems with the Comma system (the system of 54 divisions of the octave)
3. the problem with seeking too systematic an explanation of the microtones.

And I offer a different approach to understanding and learning intonation in arabic music: through relationships with other notes, and in particular through melodies and melodic phrases.

For those of you interested in a more thorough, academic treatment of the subject, I am working on a paper to flesh out some of the details, which I will link to this page.  This podcast is intended for a general audience.

At the end, Johnny Farraj, of maqamworld fame, joins me for a few pieces.

This is half of a rehearsal for our showcase next week at the national convention of APAP (the Association of Performing Artist Presenters) here in New York City.  

It is a free concert, open to the public.  Jan 21, at 6:15 pm.  The show is 20 minutes long.  For more details, please see our website:
www.zikrayatmusic.com

Tareq, a longtime musical friend of mine, plays buzuq (a long-necked, fretted lute he refers to as "the banjo of the middle east"), and talks about his musical interests, from classical (he started playing piano at around age 5; his mother is a piano teacher at the Edward Said national music conservatory in Ramallah, Palestine) to jazz (he attended William Patterson University in New Jersey, getting a degree in Jazz Piano) to Arabic, to his own project, "Shusmo"--meaning "What's it's name?" in Arabic.  He plays one of the tunes from Shusmo's first album, as well as one of the tunes he's currently working on.  We finish with a duet improvisation in Maqam Hijaz.

To find out more about Tareq, and to listen to and purchase Shusmo's first CD (appropriately titled "One"), please visit www.shusmo.com and
myspace.com/shusmo1

I will add, by way of recommendation, that this CD is my favorite so-called "fusion" Album out there--actually one of the only ones I can stand!

Recorded in August at Lark Camp.

Faisal Zidan, a Syrian percussionist from the SF Bay area, plays riqq, sings muwashshahat with me, plays some complicated rhythms (including a 32-beat rhythm for the muwashshah "Ya Murru <Ujban"), & jams with me.
  He talks a little about his love for these old songs and complex rhythms, and how he started learning muwashshahat.  He also mentions his involvement with Kan Zaman.  He has no website, but he plugs his friend's percussion website www.iqaat.com.

you can hear a lot of Lark Camp in the background!

Ernie, one of the real characters of Lark Camp, plays buzuki, sings the blues, and plays flamenco guitar.  He also talks about the bands he almost was in ("The Monkees"), how Lark Camp was started, gives some advice to musicians, and tells stories about musicians and the music scene in California.

for more on Ernie, see his PAGE
as well as that of the Institute for Traditional Studies

This is an introduction to my other podcast feed, maqamlessons.

I took samples recorded from a class at Lark Camp this last August, and explain how the maqam lessons are structured & how best to use them.  I also talk a little about my teaching philosophy.
to subscribe to maqamlessons, please use RSS feed:
http://maqamlessons.com/rss
the blog page is www.maqamlessons.com

Wael Kakish, the current director and one of the founders of Kan Zaman, a community-based Arabic music ensemble in Los Angeles, plays oud, sings a few songs, and talks about Kan Zaman.  We are also accompanied by percussionist Faisal Zidan, who will appear in a later podcast.  This podcast was recorded in August at Lark Camp.
For more information about Kan Zaman, please visit their website:
www.kanzaman.org

Part 2 --just a continuation of episode 11.

We compare some maqams shared by the Greeks, Turks, & Arabs: specifically, Sikah & Huzam, Rast, and Saba.  This podcast was recorded in camp 3 of Lark camp, in the Mendocino Woodlands in northern California.  Part 1 of a two-part episode. 

Greek Rebetika and Smyrnaica music by the Smyrna Time Machine; visit them on the web at: www.rebetes.com
Visit Turkish oud player Sinan Erdemsel on the web at: www.oudist.com
to find out about Lark Camp, visit: www.larkcamp.com
to find out about Sinan's Music and Dance camp in Turkey, visit: www.orientalcamp.com

Johnny plays riqq & demonstrates similar rhythms in 4/4, & shows how they can be interchanged.  we use a few examples from pieces, and a little improvisation on these rhythms

I play a number of different short instrumental pieces of the genre Doulab (pl. dawalib), which is used to introduce a mode, a song, or an improvisation. I play some traditional syrian & egyptian dawalib, two from the Iraqi Maqam repertory, and four of my own composition.

Anne Elise Thomas plays Qanun, an Arabic trapezoidal zither. We play doulab kurd and she improvises a bit. We chat about music pedagogy in Egypt & her recently completed thesis (congratulations, Dr. Thomas!!!). we end with the Samai Kurd by Abdu Dagher (a famous Egyptian violinist).

Nicole plays frame drum with me, talks about how she got into percussion in Minneapolis, her recent visit to New Orleans, her photographs from Morocco, and her upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia. She also talks about working with Michel Merhej on his percussion book. for more information about Nicole, and to see her photographs from Morocco, please visit www.nicolelecorgne.com

My wife Robin ("Dameshe") plays zills with me on Tamr hinna, talks about Egyptian film star and dancer Naima Akif, how she and I got interested in Egyptian Film music, and what we've been doing with Zikrayat, our new ensemble. To hear our new demos, please visit www.zikrayatmusic.com To read robin's article about dance, please visit www.thehipcircle.com

Brian starts with an improvisation, we play one of his pieces (Aqsaq Nakriz), and we chat about the Oud, the Guitar, and his jazz playing in New Orleans and New York. We end with part of Mohamed Abdel Wahhab's "Beladil Mahbuub." For more information about Brian and his various projects, please visit his website www.brianprunka.com

Johnny talks about the riqq, (a tambourine-like hand drum) and its role in Arabic Music; He talks about the Takht (typical classical ensemble) and being Zabit il-Iqa (the leader of the rhythm), and demonstrates several styles of playing and several different rhythms; Nikolai Ruskin and I play along. for more information from Johnny about Arabic music, see also www.maqamworld.com

Amir ElSaffar plays santour, an ancient Iraqi instrument (similar to a hammered dulcimer), and sings selections from Maqam Hwayzawi. We talk a little about how the Iraqi Maqam is different from other Arab music repertories, and Amir illustrates with examples from Hwayzawi. We chat about how he got into Iraqi music, his upcoming jazz commission in Philadelphia, and how he got to be so good at English. Amir's new website is:www.amirelsaffar.com For more information on his performance in Philadelphia on March 25th, please visit www.paintedbride.org for details about his performance with Zikrayat in New York on March 16th, please visit www.zikrayatmusic.com

Multi-instrumentalist Nikolai Ruskin plays the low C Nay (Arabic end-blown cane flute), with me accompanying on Rababa (Egyptian folk bowed string instrument). Nikolai discusses his feelings about the Nay, how he got into Arabic music, and how he thinks non-Arabs can learn Arabic music. for more information on the Cornell Middle Eastern Music Ensemble in Ithaca, NY, please visit: www.arts.cornell.edu/cmeme/ for more information about Nikolai, please visit: www.nikolairuskin.com/

I start with a long improvisation in Maqam Rast, and have a short discussion of the history of the violin in Arabic Music

I play the music I played for Robin to come down the aisle in our wedding last year, explain my intent with the podcast, and end with a new composition.