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![Les Succes de Botbol Du Maroc 2 (CD, front cover), shows Botbol playing oud and singing with two violinists, a derbouka player and another oud player, all in white shirts with black bow-ties (Botbol also a suit jacket).]()
Botbol’s Moroccan Hits
Enjoying this new Botbol CD on a snowy Sunday afternoon. No liner notes, though. Darn! But it does include the well-known Yah Rayah by Dahmane Harrachi: Hey, immigrant, where are you going? Sooner or later you will come back exhausted. Many ignorant people regretted this before you and me. How many overpopulated countries and empty… -
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Listening to Hachemi Gerouabi
What better on a relaxed holiday day than listening to Hachemi Guerouabi, grand master of chaâbi music (people's or folk music) from Algiers? Chaâbi came from working class areas in Algiers' casbah. Its singers generally were city people displaced from rural areas. They took melody from the classical Andalusian music that came to North… -
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Ecoute-moi, camarade…
A friend at the Magpie Coffee showed me the Radiooooo app today--and this is what came up. Maybe you know the song from Rachid Taha's cover (on Diwan 2). It's pretty desperate: oh friend, listen to me forget that girl you hear me she's going to make you sick and you are going to… -
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Belleville for the people!
Belleville is a political neighborhood. Maybe that is why I am drawn to it. Most people vote left--socialist, communist, etc. In the late 1800's, one out of ten Parisian anarchists lived in Belleville and the area played a central role in the Commune. Belleville is up high--the highest spot in Paris is in it--and it… -
![Black and white photo of Voice of the Turtle's four members holding instruments]()
Burmuelos, not Latkes
In much of the world, latkes play no role in Hanukkah. Hard to imagine, right? Here’s one of my very favorite Hanukkah songs, a Greek Jewish one called Kita’l Tas. Greek? you ask. Sounds like Spanish. Yes, it does sound like Spanish because the language it is in is Ladino, sometimes called Judeo-Espagnol.…
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Not by Might, Not by Power
There are two traditions regarding Hanukkah, an older light tradition about the increase of light in the dark time of the winter (Avodah Zarah 8b) and one a military tradition about the Maccabees’ victory over tyranny, the victory of the many over the few. I like that Jewish tradition preserves both–one about…
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