Mr. Ian Nagoski of Canary Records has been releasing high quality remasters of old 78s. He is doing all kinds of music from around the world and even
interesting things like recordings of birds singing, but his specialty seems to be immigrant Greek, Armenian and Arab musicians in the US in the early
20th century. From 1910-1930.
Particularly there were a lot of Turkish songs being recorded and they were usually recorded by the Armenians. As many of you know the Turkish songs
are still popular among many parts of the Armenian-American community.
For us as OUD aficionados the most interesting will probably be "Can All Times Be One" a re-release of material recorded by Hrant on his visits to
America in the 50s and 60s.
[I must take the blame for the strange title. Ian asked me to translate the names of the songs from Armenian and Turkish. One of the Turkish sarki's
sung by Hrant has a literal title of "Can All Times Be One". (Her Zaman Bir Olur Mu) A friend explained to me a day later that the meaning of this is
"Will it be the same every time?" But by this time Ian had already released the songs online. He agreed to change the title of the song but not the
title he had given to the "album", which he had taken from that song.]
Personally I was very struck by the sarki Hicran Acmis Sineme, but that's partly because I hadn't heard it before.
Also recently released were the Kemany Minas recording sessions which are entirely in Turkish by Armenian musicians. And the "Oh My Soul" and "Very
Sweet" releases which are from Armenian-American independent labels. Most of these are in Armenian but there are a few songs in Turkish. Most but not
all of them have oud. Interestingly one of the songs in Turkish is a song women sung in the desert death march in 1915 when they were taken to the
desert outside Deir-ez-Zor Syria and its a direct reference to those events. (Track 4 on "Oh My Soul").
Also note tracks 1-3 by Kaspar Janjanian authentic Harput folk music in Turkish and Armenian. But it has no oud, sounds to me like kanun and
clarinet.
Hovsep Shamlian was a composer who created the songs that he himself recorded as well as many of those sung by Karekin Proodian. Both were from
Diyarbakir and lived in New Jersey. Unfortunately oud is not as strong on most of these recordings but they are very good as folk-dance-style
compositions. Onnik Dinkjian recorded many of his songs.
I could go and on explaining the history of these songs but you folks will just want to listen. I can say that track 9. Vartan Margosian recording of
Sheg Mazerov has a very good oud player considering it's the 1920s. My guess is that this person is Marko Melkon. Whoever it is is much better than
the oud players Margosian usually recorded with. I have a feeling the "High Aghchig Char Aghchig" track 2 on the second part (Very Sweet) is also
Melkon. I believe I posted this track a while ago on the forum.
The collection "To What Strange Place" which came out several years back is also available on this website as are "To What Strange Place B-sides" and
many other recordings of Armenian, Assyrian, Sephardic Jewish, Turkish, Greek and Arab musicians from Turkey or the former Ottoman Empire.
Jody Stecher - 9-16-2016 at 02:02 PM
Thank you for this. I think many of us *are* interested in the history of the songs. Please don't apologize for your long information-filled posts. I
appreciate them and enjoy them.
However the link does not work.dario - 9-16-2016 at 03:01 PM
Thanks Hartun, your posts are always something to look forward to!
Jody, if you copy-paste the link in your browser bar it works...Jody Stecher - 9-16-2016 at 04:02 PM
Thanks Hartun, your posts are always something to look forward to!
Jody, if you copy-paste the link in your browser bar it works...
on a mac with Safari browser it only works if starting with "canary". I already listened a bit, was impressed, and paid and downloaded All Times Be
One as AIFF file. It took seconds to do the whole thing.Don Z - 9-16-2016 at 04:31 PM
Looking forward to it!Jack_Campin - 9-21-2016 at 12:09 PM
The link in the first post is corrupt somehow. hbguy - 12-1-2016 at 04:49 PM
Thank you for sharing. I try to share the knowledge of Armenian music history to the new generations but it's difficult overcoming what has become a
paradigm based on blinding nationalism.
At times I dare to even share the fact that most Armenians didn't speak Armenian before 1915.
