New Hussam Al-Rassam حسام الرسام links for Iraqi Music

When I first discovered Hussam Al-Rassam  حسام الرسام a few years ago I posted a link to his website and a couple of his most popular songs. Those links are long gone, but today I was looking for his music again and found some new links. It looks like he’s been in Detroit, Chicago, and in Australia recording some new stuff.

Results of 3arabtv.com search (more in this list) (sound quality is like TV):

Iraqi Song-Sad but True

Bilani Zimani [New song 2008]

Ya Noora NEW

Results of translated google search, with thumbnails and YouTube links–the sound quality is better on some of these and there are some links to stuff from his defunct website.

A little better sound quality from YouTube:

Ya Ali ياعلي

Ibnak Ya Iraq ابنك ياعراق …another version of Ibnak Ya Iraq (Your son, O Iraq)

Mu Galo – مو كالوا with some crosstalk at beginning of recording–I think the photos are Baghdad.’

The Iraqi Football (soccer) Song “bring the cup home” Jeeb El Kahsجيب الكاس

And then of course there’s the ever popular al-3agruba العگربة “Oh, my mother I have been bitten by a scorpion”, take-off on American Idol, with Hussam’s sphinx-like smile and hot dance moves.

Wait! Wait! Here it is, the official new Hussam Al-Rassam website (?)–still under construction, but very slick, and there’s a nice instrumental on the home page.  It looks like there will be eventual links to his albums–and I can only hope they plan to add a little ingeleezi button for English.

If anyone knows where to find the lyrics in English and/or in Arabic, please do post a link for me.

Three more days for the Chicago World Music Festival

The Chicago Music Festival runs from September 19-25 this year with free or very reasonably price concerts at various locations around the city.

Arabic artists this year are Dhafer Youssef of Tunisia, Ensemble Al-Kindi of Syria, and Gaida Hinawwi–listen to her |here|, a female vocalist from Iraq in the traditional maqam style.  The Iraqi already performed Sunday, and the Syrian group preformed Friday–drat, they bill themselves as “Whirling Dervishes of Damascus”.

Yet to come–

Wednesday:

The Dhafer Youssef concert (Sufi Mystic Fusion) is Wednesday 9/24 7:30 P.M at the Museum of Contemporary Art–Admission $15. Listen to a sample of the music–”Farha” from Electric Sufi–at the festival website |here|. (Click on Wednesday) Also  Wednesday night is Mor Karbasi with the flamenco-esque Shephardic Ladino music from Jerusalem–see Thursday for the link.

Thursday:

You can also hear Dhafer Youssef  Thursday from 11:00-2:00 PM at the Chicago Cultural Center’s Claudia Theater free.  (And bask in the glow of the Tiffany stained glass dome at the same time.) To be broadcast line on WNUR 89.3 FM on the “Continental Drift” international program.  Also appearing in this venue is Mor Karbasi–listen here, oh, yes! from Israel with Sephardic Ladino Music–the music and language of the exiled Jews of Spain–sounds interesting, but they are separted by two acts–could that be a coididink?

The festival ends Thurday with an open house/Mexican market at the Cultural Center. For addresses see the City of Chicago’s official festival website.

The links for audio tracks again are:

Chicago Music Festival

Gaida Hinawwi–listen to her |here|

Mor Karbasi–listen here, oh, yes!

or look for links yourself on this list of featured artists

Lo Cor de la Plana from Spain, a capella male voices

Fasting music for Ramadan–mystical planets

Yesterday I ran off to class without breakfast and decided that was as good a reason as any to fast for the day. Intention, I thought, remembering the traditional pre-dawn Ramadan prayer to start the day with fasting.

The hardest part of fasting is not the half hour before sunset.  No, that’s a time of high mental concentration as you organize everything to reach your Iftar destination before sunset, make meal preparations, or remember what you have forgotten to do throughout the day.  In this case I was in the garden picking tomatoes near dusk and trying to tell the red tomatoes from the green ones… is this anything like the official Moslem definition of dusk as the time when you can’t tell a black thread from a white one?  And once the magical hour comes and you have taken a couple of dates to break the fast in anticipation of further goodies, a lethargy sets in as you realize you are in for the night and will not likely accomplish anything else on your ‘to do’ list.

The hardest part of the fasting is during the day, when everything you do is a little more sluggish than usual, you periodically realize you are hungry, then in the same instant–intention–remember it’s because you are fasting.  As thinking about anything requires an intentional focus of consciousness, you try to think of what spiritual thing you were trying to accomplish that made you think of fasting in the first place.

It was at this intentionally focused moment in the afternoon I was inspired to want to listen to Gustav Holst’s Planets Suite. Looking it up, I found the traditional order of playing the movements is Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. No Pluto moevment, that was long before Pluto’s discovery and subsequant deplanetization–but you have to wonder what Holst would have made of Eris, Dysnomia, and Discordianism.  There is a recording of the Planet Suite at aquarianage.org, but it has errors and sounds terrible on laptop. Another recording by the Peabody Concert Orchestra is available for personal use.

And how to the planets figure into Islam?  Islamic tradition says Abraham’s father Imran was a maker of idols and worshiped the planets.  But Abraham broke from his father’s faith, became a monotheist, and established the original mosque at Mecca centuries before it became a center for pilgrimage for the triple goddess and was later newly discovered by the Prophet.  The region’s shift to Islam meant it was Allah, and not the planets that had mystically created life.

If you want to hear some vintage Holst from after he traveled to Arab lands, including Algerian Sahara, but before he was influenced by Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring,  you can listen to Beni Mora– the movements First Dance, Second Dance, and Finale: in the Street of the Ouled Nails |here|.

Spiritual recordings for Ramadan 2008

A few days ago I started getting hits on a post I wrote a year ago for Ramadan. It had a lovely “dua” or prayer in Arabic.  But the dua‘s not there anymore –the website has been reorganized. Too bad.  I enjoyed the feeling of peace that emanated from the sound of the prayer and also the feeling of connection to Muslims during their holy season. The disappearance of the dua is a bit like the Hindu sand pictures that remind one of the impermanence of everything.

But Ramadan has come around again, I’ve got guidief in the frig, and I’m fasting today, so here are some picks for this year’s spiritual journey.

For anyone who is homesick for the call to prayer (note: link no longer active) (link is now active as of the first day of Ramadan 2009), here is the city of San’a, Yemen at sunset.

Sheik Abdul Kareem Edghouch reciting the Surat Al-layl( text in Arabic)–”The Night” (English interpretation of text) chapter of the Quran.

From a Pakistani site, a haunting female voice singing Sallu Aliyeh Waa Aleyeh (Mehnaz) in an eastern musical scale. And Madine Ko Jaye (Abdur Rufi), with a male voice, minor tones and strong percussion. If you like those, follow the “religious” subject line backwards and you will find the 99 names of Allah and the call to prayer from various world mosques.

Apparently fasting has its own correct prayers to go with it.  I have found the same formula prayers at two sources.  From the website hamdonaat.com:

Following is a compilation of Duas for Fasting (Ramadan)

- Dua for keeping a fast at the time of Sehar (Niyaat)

Wa bisawmi ghadinn nawaiytu min shahri ramadan

- Dua for breaking a fast at the time of Iftaar

Allahumma inni laka sumtu wa bika aamantu [wa 'alayka tawakkaltu] wa ‘ala rizq-ika aftarthu*

OR

dhahabadh-dhama’u wab-tallatil ‘uruuqi, wa thabatal arju inshaAllah

Allaahumma inni as�aluka birahmatika al-lati wasi’at kulli shay�in an taghfira li

- Dua for breaking a fast at a friends house

Aftara ‘indakumus saa’imuna, wa akala ta’aamakumul-abraaru, wasallat ‘alaikumul mala’ikat

I love it how this person puts both the Arabic and the transliteration together.

Or relax and just listen to this “Beautiful Ramadan Dua’a”–but she uses the Arabic L33T notation so you might not know the pronunciation unless you are familiar with this. I know 3 is the ein letter and I think 7 is the heavier H sound but I don’t know the rest. She also gives some more prayers she calls “authentic” like “Upon seeing the first dates of the season”.

For even more spiritual listening, Al-Hidaaya has a video supplication for every day of Ramadan.