Keep On Looking To The East
Historian Chris Silver talks about North Africa's rich Jewish musical history, an interview with Israeli musical journeyman Lior Romano, and a roundup of eight deep cuts from the Gharamophone archive
Welcome to the Ingathering.
The Ingathering is a series of original content—interviews, essays, and more—and takes a comprehensive look at Jewish music and spirituality. This week’s edition features an interview with Chris Silver, the curator of the online archive, Gharamophone, which, according to the site, is dedicated to “preserving North Africa’s Jewish musical past, one record at a time.” The interview is followed by a sampling of eight selections from the archive, and features great music from Jewish artists from mid-twentieth century North Africa that you need to check out. We also speak with Israeli session ace, A-list sideman, and bandleader, Lior Romano, about his many projects, as well as his recent release on Batov Records.
The Jewish Musicians Of The Maghreb
North Africa, from the late nineteenth century during the colonial period, through the middle of the twentieth century, was home to numerous musicians, recording artists, and a flourishing record industry. It was a diverse and eclectic scene, and was dominated—despite their small numbers relative to the general population—by Jews. Jews worked as instrumentalists, performers, composers, impresarios, and label heads. They had close working relationships with their Muslim contemporaries, and lived in urban centers and villages throughout Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, an area also known as the Maghreb.
Christopher Silver is a historian, and also the Segal Family Assistant Professor in Jewish History and Culture at McGill University. He curates the online archive, Gharamophone, which is dedicated to preserving the legacy of North Africa’s Jewish musicians and recordings. His efforts including digitizing selections from his collection of vintage 78s, posting them online, and providing detailed information about the artists, labels, and composers, as well as the cultural impact of their work. Gharamophone tells the story of these artists—most of whom are not well-known in the west—and paints a very different picture of Jewish life in North Africa, which is somewhat distinct from the impersonal geopolitics in textbooks.
“The interesting thing about music is that the societal rupture—what we tend to think of when we think of history—is much more difficult,” Silver says. “In independent Algeria, for example, where there were very few Jews remaining, there were plenty of Muslim musicians who were trained by their Jewish peers, their former collaborators. The knowledge both of what that Jewish-Muslim relationship once looked like, and the musical knowledge as well, that institutional knowledge remains with musicians. They carry that forward and pass it along. You have these continuities that balk at this notion of rupture. In the Algerian case, there is correspondence that continues—I’ve seen it in my own archival work—where Algerian Muslim musicians are writing to their former compatriots, who are now living in France. Radio is important in this equation, too, one can still pick up Algerian radio in a place like France, or Moroccans can still pick up Algerian radio. Another thing is that the flow of records doesn’t stop. There are these continuities. In Algeria, there are very few Jews to speak of after 1962, but in a way, everywhere music is being played, you can hear Jewish voices. That’s something I reflect on quite a bit. We tend to think of it as a disappearance, and yet you can still hear these voices from the not too distant past wherever music was being played.”
I spoke with Silver about the rich Jewish musical history of the Maghreb, the various personalities and stars of the day, the complicated legacy of European imperialism, the thriving master-apprentice relationship between Jewish and Muslim musicians, the renewed interest in this music in modern Israel, and his efforts hunting down obscure, long-out-of-print 78s. Following our Q&A is a roundup of eight essential tracks from Gharamophone, which serve as a gateway to this fascinating, and little-explored world.
Go here to read the full interview with Chris Silver, and to learn about to check out eight selections from the archive.
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Global Grooves And Other Adventures
If you listen to enough Israeli-made world music and funk, one sideman—and more recently, bandleader—who’s name seems to be everywhere, is keyboardist Lior Romano. Romano’s ubiquity owes a lot to his prodigious chops, and tasteful playing, as well as to his positive outlook, and obvious ability to hang. His curriculum vitae includes regular gigs with A-list, Israeli artists like Karolina and Ester Rada, and also stints as a member of various bands, like the Amharic-language Ethiopian outfit, Ground Heights, and the well-traveled, reggae group, Zvuloon Dub System. He’s also a frequent contributor to assorted projects on the Batov record label, including Sababa 5, Baharat, and his recent self-titled seven-inch.
Romano is busy, but he’s not an anomaly, and is one of a number of new-breed Israeli musicians with superior musical skills, fluency in multiple genres—often groove-centric world styles, funk, and expansive modal jazz—as well as a command of Near Eastern musics, and nuggets from the Jewish diaspora. In Romano’s case, that includes Ethiopian rhythms and melodies, ‘70s-era Israeli disco, and assorted Mediterranean and Balkan feels.
I spoke with him about his work as a session player in Israel, the intricacies of Ethiopian music, the camaraderie of being part of a small, but exciting, local scene, and the fun of seeing many of the same faces at different shows around Israel.
Go here to read the full interview with Lior Romano.
#ICYMI: We Don’t Play The Sad Stuff
Annette Ezekiel Kogan started her band, Golem, in the early 2000s, as a way to explore the Eastern European folk musics she loved, but in a manner that was authentic, and Jewish. “I just wanted to do something that was my own,” she says in our interview below. “I felt that there were already real Russian, and Ukrainian, and Balkan people who played that stuff, so what’s my music? Then I started getting into klezmer music, because it is essentially the same kind of music, pretty much, except that it’s got this Jewish feel to it.”
But that focus doesn’t make Golem an oldies act, bound to traditional conventions, or a part of the klezmer revival. It has edge, and, despite its mostly acoustic—and guitar-less—instrumentation, owes a lot more to punk than old world sensibilities. And that, given the abundance of Yiddish-speaking, philo-semitic programing for 20-something, hip, urban, Jewish singles in New York at the time—where Golem was based—put them at the epicenter of a vibrant, if short-lived, Jewish cultural explosion.
I spoke with Ezekiel Kogan from her corona hideout in the Catskills. We discussed her early experiences with Eastern European music, learning Yiddish, Golem’s unique approach to klezmer, how music is a gateway to Jewish identity, and her awkward encounters with Jewish music enthusiasts in Poland.
Go here to read the full interview with Annette Ezekiel Kogan.