eastmountain - 4-9-2009 at 03:47 PM
I found this article about a rabbi who studied and plays oud, and while the article isn't primarily about his oud playing, I thought you might find it
interesting.
http://www.stlmag.com/media/St-Louis-Magazine/March-2008/The-Other-...
rojaros - 4-10-2009 at 02:38 AM
Tanks for the link; it's quite touching to see there are such people in the world. And the Oud is a good companion for that...
best wishes
Robert
John Erlich - 4-10-2009 at 08:19 AM
Rabbi Rolando Matalon of New York also plays oud:
“This is Arabic music and Jews have been using it for prayers and parties for hundreds of years,” said Rabbi Roly Matalon during a recent oud
lesson with Mr. Shaheen at his temple. Rabbi Matalon, an oud player in the New York Arabic Orchestra, considers himself an Arab Jew, as his family
came from Syria by way of Argentina. He has introduced Arabic melodies from his childhood into the prayers at his congregation, B’nai Jeshurun. And
despite the majority of the members being of Ashkenazi descent, the rabbi exclaims, “They love it!”
John Erlich - 4-10-2009 at 08:22 AM
Tel Aviv newly named street "al-Kuwaiti Brothers"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Tim Franks
BBC News, Jerusalem
MUSICIANS OF THE ENEMY
South Tel Aviv has a newly named street. As of just over two weeks ago, just off Bossem Street, you can now find Rechov Ha'achim al-Kuvaiti, or
al-Kuwaiti Brothers Street.
On one corner, there is a handsome, white modernist villa. Opposite, there is a large, run-down apartment block. Many of the residents were not
delighted that their street had been given a new, apparently Arabic name.
The Tel Aviv municipality had, though, decided to bestow posthumous recognition on two of its least celebrated residents.
Saleh and Daoud al-Kuwaiti had lived close by to their eponymous street, after they had joined the mass emigration of Jews from Iraq to Israel in
1951.
Theirs were lives of triumph and dejection. They had been the toast of Baghdad, in the words of Saleh's son Shlomo, "the national composers of Iraq,
and the founders of Iraqi modern music".
In their pomp, the emir of Kuwait would visit the al-Kuwaiti family home, every six weeks, to listen to the brothers perform.
When Shlomo's oldest brother was born, his father called him Sabah, after the emir's family name.
The emir attended Sabah's circumcision, bringing with him a gold case, filled with gold coins.
But the establishment of the new Jewish state in 1948 brought in its wake a surge in anti-Semitism in Iraq. It reached a point where the al-Kuwaitis
decided to move to Israel.
It was then that the brothers began to feel the slow crush of disillusion.
"My father," recalls Shlomo, "suffered twice." The first rejection was that of Israel, which in 1951 had little time for the al-Kuwaitis' music. "His
music was considered the music of the enemy," says Shlomo. "So immediately, they put his music in a ghetto. Instead of the concert hall, my father and
his brother had to play weddings and barmitzvahs and family fiestas, with people eating and drinking... and not listening."
The second blow came from inside Iraq. Shlomo claims as much as 90% of Iraq's modern popular music was written by his father. The new Iraqi regime
"couldn't erase the music, because everyone was singing it. But the regime started to call it traditional music. They didn't mention his name. They
sometimes forced another composer to take the credit."
Daoud al-Kuwaiti died in 1976; his brother, Saleh, Shlomo's father, died, at the age of 78, in 1986. They were so dejected that they forbade their
children from playing music themselves.
"We wanted to learn," says Shlomo. "They didn't allow us."
But now Daoud's grandson, Dudu, has broken the brothers' order. Dudu, 32, is a musician. He was born, three months after Daoud's death
.
Only at the age of 15 did he begin to approach his grandfather's music. It was, he says, shockingly different: "They even invented certain scales that
didn't exist at the time."
Dudu has now started to take their tunes, and re-interpret them.
"These days, songs last three or four minutes. Theirs are much longer and more complex and more serpentine," Dudu told me in his spartan Tel Aviv
bed-sit.
He has produced three songs based on the brothers' music and has plans for an entire album.
Shlomo says there has been a new reckoning across the Middle East. He and his family sent discs of the brothers' music "through London to Arab
countries".
It was, he says, a "revolution", as people realised that these "traditional" tunes were in fact the work of the al-Kuwaiti brothers.
Questions were asked in the Kuwaiti parliament: in the words of Shlomo, asking, "so what if they were Jewish?"
Shlomo says people from Arab countries sent him more than 650 songs which he did not know about, saying that they were the work of his father.
Then the family approached the Tel Aviv city council to ask for municipal recognition.
That process culminated with the re-naming of a small street in the south of the city.
Shlomo says that, during the ceremony, in February, the residents complained noisily.
They were, he says, "from the right, right-wing of Israeli society. They said we don't want this name because it's Arabic. We began to describe who
these people were. And then the residents were angry with the municipality for not explaining."
A few days after we met, Shlomo was planning to print and distribute leaflets for the residents with more information about the brothers.
And the Israeli director, Gili Gaon, has started filming for a documentary, called Lost Honour, about the brothers.
Dudu Tassa, the grandson and young musician, says that the family has not completely exorcised its fear of rejection.
"My mother is a bit like a mirror to what the brothers would have thought. She is very concerned. She says music is not something you can make a
living out of."
Dudu acknowledges that Daoud and Saleh would not be happy with him.
"But maybe there's also something symbolic, me being named after Daoud. Maybe I didn't have a choice. Maybe it's my destiny to be a musician."
eastmountain - 4-10-2009 at 11:48 AM
I'm a Christian myself, but I think its great that music, and perhaps oud music in particular, can be a bridge that links the children of Abraham
together.
John Erlich - 4-10-2009 at 12:23 PM
Hi eastmountain,
This is my favorite Christian music w/oud CD:
http://www.amazon.com/Chant-Maronite/dp/B000XQHQXA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UT...
Sister Marie Keyrouz has other recordings, but I am partial to this one because of the Syriac/Aramaic language, which we Jews share with many Eastern
Christians, as well as the fact that I have an uncle who is half-Lebanese Maronite.
Regarding oud and Middle Eastern music as an "Abrahamic bridge," check out especially the work of Yuval Ron, based in Southern California: http://www.yuvalronmusic.com/home.html?text/ensemble.html~mainFrame (BTW, "his" dervish is also "my" dervish. 
)
Kali Pascha,
John
Kuwaiti Brothers
shareen - 4-11-2009 at 02:41 AM
What an amazing story!! Thank you so much. What an amazing story!!
Thank you so much.