L'Hajja L'Hamdawya - 'Nuff Said!

I was thrilled to see the return of the fantastic diva L'Hajja L'Hamdawya to prominence in Morocco over the last decade. Through the '90s and early 2000s (when I spent a lot of time in Morocco), she seemed like nothing but a sepiatone memory. A well-loved celebrity from the '50s &'60s who, it was said, had fallen on hard times, been too generous (or foolhardy) with her money, and was now living in obscurity somewhere in Casablanca. Over the last 10 years, she's proved to be not only alive and well, but in fantastic voice, now into her '80s.



She began her career singing aita marsawiya and was one of the first artists to sing it on television (when it was still considered provocative music of ill-repute). Notably, she also performed and recorded with large orchestras of the chanson moderne style favored by Moroccan television and radio in the 50's-'60s. Such orchestras were usually reserved for artists working in the Arab-Art-Music of long-form compositions rather than the folkloric aita and popular chaâbi song forms. According to a Moroccan scholar I spoke with years ago, the sight of a woman holding the iconic bendir or ta'rija of the aita in front of one of these large orchestras was something unheard of, back in the day.


(video and audio are out of sync, but here's a rare vintage TV appearance of Hajja Hamdaouia)

This cassette features a more stripped-down ensemble - not a full orchestra, but just a couple of violas, a flute, a harpsichordey keyboard, and an electric guitar (in addition to the percussion). I'm guessing this recording is from the 1960s or early 1970s. I own an LP with this same photo on it (as well as a couple other cassettes with the same photo), so I'm guessing this is a cassette reissue of an earlier LP release.

1) Ach Ja Idir?

2) Al Asmar I'jebni
3) Ayamna Ayamna
4) Allah Ya'tik B-Sber
5) Wlida Wlida - Dawr Biha

Get it here.

Chaâbi viola as Jilala flute - Saïd Senhaji

About 10-12 years ago, there seemed to be an explosion of pop hits in Morocco making reference to trance of one flavor or another. I don't mean pop versions of Gnawa or Jilala songs. Rather, I mean NEW songs with lyrics referring to the spirits or to the experience of trance. What struck me as odd was that most of these songs made no musical reference to trance music of the Gnawa, Jilala or other groups. Rather, they fit the basic mold of chaâbi songs, ready to slip into the repertoire of a wedding band with a viola player and a nicely dressed lead singer. You don't typically want to hire a trance music group for a wedding but, as Deborah Kapchan has noted, the aesthetics of nashat (lively, energetic, loose party feeling) often come close to those of jadba (possession trance), and sometimes bump up against each other (1).

I tend to like my trance uncut, so these songs never did much for me. Some of the tunes were pretty catchy and popular, though. You can hear a few of these on a great early-2000s chaâbi compilation Maroc by Night (tracks 6, 17 and 19). Hamri's "Samaoui" in particular was massive in the spring-summer of 2001.

One track that I do rather like is "Aicha el Mejdouba" by Orchestre Senhaji. What got under my skin was the weird sound processing on the violin. The first time I heard this, I had no idea what instrument was playing. To my ears now, the strange throb seems to hearken to the unique timbre of the gasba flutes in Jilala trance music. The lyrics of the song also refer to the Jilala. Here's a lip-sync/playback clip of Saïd Senhaji performing this tune:

 
"Aicha el Mejdouba", track 5 on today's offering, is the only tune on the album to feature the tweaked viola sound. The rest of the album is some darn fine straight-up Casablanca chaâbi music, vintage Y2K, served up by the singer Saïd Senhaji and his orchestre. Heavy on the rhythm (drum kit in effect), swell riffin' on the viola, catchy call-response vocals. The electric guitar comping doesn't always work for me, but I've heard waaaaaaay worse.

Check yala.fm for Senhaji's bio and more tunes. Amazon has LOTS of Sehaji mp3s (though, oddly, not the album I've got here.) And for those of you here on the West Coast of the USA, Saïd Senhaji will perform in Anaheim on Saturday May 19!

Discographic note: the j-card reads
 سهرة حية مع الجمهور, i.e., "live concert with audience", but that does not appear to be the case - this sounds like a studio recording.

Get it here.

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(1) Deborah Kapchan. "Nashat: The Gender of Musical Celebration in Morocco." Pp. 251-65 in Music and Gender: Perspectives from the Mediterranean, edited by Tullia Magrini. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

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UPDATE 2012-04-21, 11:30PM - I think the link was incorrect earlier. It should be fine now.

El Bhiri - Chaâbi from Casa, yeah!

Instead of poring through the Lomax collection yesterday, I decided to pore through a stash of about 75 cassettes I inherited from a friend recently. Separated out the Maghrebi music tapes from the Middle Eastern ones and the Islamic lectures. I was still jonesing for some chaâbi, and scored with a swell tape of El Bhiri. Yala.fm describes him as a chaâbi artist from Casablanca. The tracks here stay mostly to the aita side of the chaâbi field, with the exception of track 5, which is more of a call-response percussion band-style rave-up.

The tape is missing the first couple minutes of track 3, where someone inadvertently (or advertently?) taped some interesting but completely non-sequitur Middle Atlas tamazight song on top.

Here's El Bhiri on TV:


Get it here.