Mazal Haï Mazal: Eight North African Tracks to Light Your Soul On Fire

2014 came and went too quickly. I wanted to post more often but as so frequently happens, life got in the way. In lieu of my more regular posts, I offer you, “Mazal Haï Mazal: Eight North African Tracks to Light Your Soul On Fire,” as an end of the year treat. These are eight (one for every night of Hanukkah) of my favorite Moroccan and Algerian tracks (mostly on vinyl but one on cassette) and articulate a range of Maghrebi Jewish sounds - from Andalusian to chaabi to a song about the atomic bomb! Feel free to stream, download, and share.

Consider the title of this end of the year Hanukkah mixtape an Arabic-Hebrew play on words. Indeed for most of the mid-century North African Jewish artists featured here, “mazal” always carried two meanings. In Arabic, mazal meant “still,” as in Lili Labassi’s “Mazal haï mazal” (S/he’s still alive) - a track beautifully presented on the Excavated Shellac blog. But so too did mazal recall the Hebrew for “luck” or “fortune,” a point made by Labassi’s disciple Blond Blond, who sang, “mazal, c’est la chance,” in what is perhaps the only Algerian Hanukkah song ever to be recorded commercially. I say all of this to convey the following: treat my take on Mazal Haï Mazal in both of these senses. Not only is this music “still alive” but so too should we remember that it is through a combination of fortune and luck (and all of our good graces) that it continues to live on.

One last point before we get to the music. Treat this as a soft launch of a crowd funding campaign to turn my private record collection into a public sound archive. On my shelves are historical audio gems that deserved to be shared and I want to make that happen as soon as possible. In other words, keep an eye out on this site in 2015!

Best wishes for the New Year!

Moroccan Grooves, Blogged: Jewish Morocco Featured on Tablet Mag

A sampling of North African 45s.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Sara Ivry at Tablet Magazine last week to record this piece on a history of Jewish musicians in Morocco, my quest to find their recordings and how my personal musical history fits in to all of this. I digitized some Samy Elmaghribi, Line Monty and Cheikh Mwijo especially for the podcast so I hope everyone enjoys.

Here is the introductory text from Tablet:

By day, Chris Silver works for a Jewish task force trying to raise awareness about civic inequalities facing Israel’s Arab citizens. But he dedicates his free time to Jews in an Arab land, with his blog, Jewish Morocco. Silver created the blog in 2008, while traveling in Morocco, as a way of sharing the stories, photographs, and other artifacts he was collecting to document what Jewish life there had been like in its heyday. Along the way, he developed a particular interest in the country’s Jewish musicians and singers—characters who were beloved by Moroccans of all backgrounds, and to whom he gives ample space on his blog. Silver joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about some of the unique voices he’s discovered, what happened to Jewish Moroccan singers once they left the country in the 1950s and ’60s, and where he gets his missionary zeal (hint: It has to do with Bob Dylan; Mama Cass; Bill Cosby; and Chris’s dad, Roy). [Running time: 25:55.]

Listen to the podcast here: http://www.tabletmag.com/podcasts/101311/moroccan-grooves-blogged

I'll be posting more in a few weeks including some pieces that didn't make it in the final edit - so keep an eye and ear out for fresh posts.

Felix el Maghrebi - A Life in 45s

Felix el Maghrebi was a mainstay of the Moroccan pop scene in the 1960s. His real name was Felix Weizman - Weizman being a somewhat popular Moroccan Jewish last name not related to its Ashkenazi counterpart. He died on March 6, 2008, right before the death of Samy ElMaghribi

I've been listening to a number of his 45s recently which I have only found on the N. Sabbah label, an indigenous Moroccan label produced in Casablanca. Interestingly, I have only seen / heard N. Sabbah 78s and 45s but no 33s. It seems as though N. Sabbah recorded mostly Jewish artists although as you will see from the back of this Felix el Maghrebi EP, the label also produced Muslim artists.

Felix el Maghrebi. El Frak & Khel Laiounne. N. Sabbah. 196?

Felix el Maghrebi. El Frak & Khel Laiounne. N. Sabbah. 196?

Felix el Maghrebi. Kaftanec Mahlou & El Mlaine. N. Sabbah. 196?

The first record is in my possession but I grabbed the second record image from the Jewish Moroccan Heritage site based in Belgium. If you click here, you can see a bunch of Moroccan Jewish 45 album covers. The Botbol cassette I recently uploaded can be seen in its record form as well as an Albert Suissa EP on Casaphone. I wish there were a way to bring these to the forefront of the site a bit more but a little searching does the trick.

I'll be uploading some more album art soon but in the meantime enjoy.

Two More Digitized Haim Abitbol Tracks!

Another two tracks from Haim Abitbol. I have two more to upload from this cassette but waiting to get a new external hard drive so I can transfer a bunch of files.

Harket dana mouhjati - Haim Abitbol (Koutoubiaphone, 1970s) by CBSilver

Frak ghzali - Haim Abitbol (Koutoubiaphone, 1970s) by CBSilver

More Haim Abitbol Recordings Up

Below are two recently uploaded recordings (from a 1970s cassette) of Haim Abitbol on Koutoubiaphone. Enjoy.

Oulayni haya by Haim Abitbol (Koutoubiaphone, 1970s) by CBSilver

Karmelitta - Haim Abitbol (Koutoubiaphone, 1970s) by CBSilver

Haim Abitbol Digitized: Rare Recordings from the Koutobiaphone Era

Haim Abitbol. Abitbol. Koutoubiaphone. 1970s

Ok. I have been meaning to post this for some time. I first discussed Haim Abitbol (also sometimes listed as Botbol, it changes from album to album) over a year and half ago. I then posted some information about him here.

The short of it is is that Haim Abitbol was born in Fez in the 1930s to a musical family. By the 1950s he was collaborating with Salim Halali and others. I picked up this cassette in 2009 in Casablanca and was blown away. Really great chaabi music. Many of Abitbol's albums appeared on the now defunct Koutoubiaphone label. He continues to perform to this day. Abitbol represents part of the long tradition of North African Jews performing unparalleled North African popular music. I digitized this cassette last week and I am providing the first track Toumobile jaya below. I will add the others soon.

My Search for Haim Botbol

Before I last left Morocco in Aprl, I happened on a fantastic Abitbol cassette. I have been working on verifying the identify of this Moroccan Jewish singer since then. It should have been obvious to me who he was but my searches yielded far too many unrelated results. It's amazing how a few changes to a Google search (think: Botbol instead of Abitbol and Chaabi instead of Musique) can make all the difference.

So it appears that since leaving Morocco, I have been listening to the chaabi stylings of Haim Botbol whose photo is above. Botbol was born in Fes and has been performing for decades, you can find his translated bio here.

Click here for a link to some of his videos. Here he is performing with Vanessa Paloma at the Laredo Old Age Home in Tangier. I will work on scanning and then posting the cover of the cassette I purchased.

Berber Vinyl and Abitbol Cassettes

On Friday before heading out to interview Raphy, I stopped by a fantastic music store (for those in Casa, the store is located at 26 Lalla Yacout Street). Le Comptoire Marocain de Distribution de Disques carrys an extensive collection of Arab and Berber music in vinyl, cassette, and cd form from mostly the 1960s and 1970s. The music is hand picked and excellent quality. I picked up a few Berber LPs. These musicians were all from the Souss region and were masters or rwais of the rebab (spiked fidle). Interestingly, there were ahwash and rwais musicians amongst Chleuh speaking Jews (including from Ighil N'Oro - a picture of the Jewish cemetery there is at the top of the blog) who eventually imported this musical style to Israel, click here to read more.

I had originally stopped by to see if they had any Samy Elmaghribi or Salim Hilali on vinyl - two universally respected (by Moroccans) Moroccan Jewish singers. Unfortunately they didn't have any. Also, there was recently an exhibit on Samy Elmaghribi at the Casablanca Jewish Museum.

But...

In another testament to the ominpresence of Jewish life in Morocco, the store carried an extensive and possibly complete collection of the popular (shaabi) Moroccan Jewish singer Abitbol. I picked up one of his cassettes and will post a picture of the cover soon.