Friday, October 23, 2015

Al-Munshid Tawfiq Al-Munajjid - Tafârîd - CD from Syria


We continue here our series of recordings from Syria which our dear friend Danny brought years ago from a trip to Syria. The next couple of recordings will be of Sufi music by some famous Munshidin and their groups. Mostly this "music" is purely vocal, sometimes it is accompanied by frame drums.
The Munshid Tawfiq Al-Munajjid seems to be the most famous and outstanding of the older munshidin. I couldn't find any details about his life or background nor if he is still living. He was one of the two teachers of the famous Hamza Shakkur. His singing is very intense.

Monday, October 19, 2015

Habil Aliyev (28 May 1927 – 8 September 2015) - In his memory: LP "Kemancha" published in 1990 in Azerbaijan


We only received recently the sad news that Habil Aliyev, the great Kemencheh master from Azerbaijan, past away on september 8th. Here we offer in his memory a LP we bought at a memorable concert in Cologne in 1993 in which he participated. Both me and my wife were very impressed by his stage presence and his very noble, almost regal bearing and of course his exquisite music. I knew him already before from recordings. It might have been that I bought this LP already before in an Iranian shop in Cologne which used to have a whole pile of LPs from Sowjet Azerbaijan. He was probably the greatest Kemencheh player of the 20th century, held in very high esteem in his country and also in Iran, where he performed reguarly, occasionally with Shajarian, and also recorded. I have two Iranian cassettes by him, which a couple of years ago were republished on CD. The CDs can be obtained from info@raga-maqam-dastgah.com.
In the west there was only one CD published in 1992 by Auvidis, no longer available for many many years, and two CDs of the ensemble which I saw in 1993 in Cologne, published in 1994 by Institut du Monde Arabe/Blue Silver, also no longer available for many years and never republished. The ensemble consisted of Habil Aliev, the great tar player Ramiz Gouliev, the two singers Zahid Gouliev and Elza Gaybalieva and the nagara player Ali Amiraslanov. These two CDs contained also a number of solos by the two instrumentalists. It's a pity that they were on the market only for quite a short period. 
For more info see:
http://habilaliyev.az/eng/diskoqrafiya/plastinka.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habil_Aliyev


Side 1:
1. Dilkesh and Tesnif
2. Chahargah


Side 2:
1. Bayati-Hajar and Tesnif
2. Bayati-Shiraz and Tesnif


accompanied by:
Agagusyn Samed-Zade - Garmon (used here as a drone)
Beyukaga Muradov - Nagara (in the Tesnifs)


Zhuzhu had posted this LP already in 2011 on her excellent blog, but only in mp3 format. See: http://zhuzhulingo.blogspot.de/2011/08/blog-post_05.html

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Turgun Alimatov (1922-2008) & Abror Zufarov - Ustoz va Ustazoda - MP3-CD from Uzbekistan


Here we present the next in our series of MP3-CDs which our dear friend Danny brought a couple of years ago from Uzbekistan. This time an instrumental album by the greatest Uzbek instrumentalist of the second half of the 20th century: Turgun Alimatov, a Sato, Tanbur and Dutar player.
For more infos on the artist see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turgun_Alimatov 
This CD also contains music by his student Abror Zufarov. 
The CD contains six folders, three containing 39 tracks by Turgun Alimatov and three by Abror Zufarov.




In 1995 Ocora - Radio France published a CD by him which unfortunately is no longer available:


On her blog Zhuzhu posted a LP by him from 1982:



http://zhuzhulingo.blogspot.de/2011/06/blog-post_24.html