Philip Solomon: New England's Eminent Arab American Music Violin Virtuoso

Philip F. Solomon from an Alamphon Records Sleeve. Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collections.

  

Approximately six miles northeast of Providence, Rhode Island, where the Seekonk and Blackstone Rivers meet, rests the city of Pawtucket. Its population in 2020 was just over 75,000, but in the 1950s and 1960s when Pawtucket reached its population peak nearly 81.000 people resided there. At the same moment in the 1950s and 1960s, Pawtucket played host to the largest annual mahrajan on the East Coast – a multi-day music and cultural festival that brought Arab America’s biggest and brightest musical talent for a weekend of food, fun, dance, conversation, and cross generational socializing.

 

Those musicians who played at the Pawtucket mahrajan over the years were a who’s who of middle period Arab American performing artists – Hanan, Kahraman, Naif Agby, Tony Abdelahad, Mohammed El-Akkad, Amer & Sana Kadaj, Emil Kasses, Najeeba Morad, Jamili Matouk, Naim Karacand, and Mike Hamway,  the list goes on and on. They came from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, but from just down the road in Providence came frequent Anton Abdelahad-collaborator and violinist 

Philip Solomon.

 

Joseph and Josephine Solomon welcomed Philip Francis Solomon into the world on 23 July 1905 (although one military record lists 1900 as his birth year). Joseph immigrated to the United States from Tripoli, Greater Syria (now Lebanon) in 1901 onboard the Philadelphia. Curiously, census records give Syria as Josephine’s birthplace, but some of Josephine’s immigration documents suggest she was born in Melbourne, Australia and while others list Syria. Whatever the case, Philip was the couple’s second oldest, preceded by Cecilia and followed by Susanne, Edward, and Michel. All the children were born in Providence.

 

Two years after Phillip’s birth, the Syrian population of Rhode Island was approximately 1,092 largely concentrated in Pawtucket, Providence, Central Falls, Warren, and Wonsoket. Providence, alone, had roughly 600 Syrian residents. A scarcity of sources makes it difficult to know where Philip and his siblings attended high school. Was it Commercial High School, Technical High School or LaSalle Academy? Given that we know the family were Melkite, LaSalle is certainly a possibility.

 

Growing up, Philip’s father worked as a tailor and served a cantor in the Maronite Church. The family, headed by Joseph’s father, Elias, lived at 447 South Main Street (before moving to 133 Sheldon Street) and attended Saint George’s Maronite Church founded in 1911 in Providence. Meanwhile, Joseph came to admire the singing of Maronite Priest, Rev. George Aziz. Aziz recorded on Columbia Records in 1914, becoming one of the labels first Arab American recording artists. Young Philip watched closely and took notes.

 

At 25 years old, Philip Solomon noted his occupation as a violinist for an orchestra and over the next decade his appearances at hafla and mahrajan increased slowly. In Raleigh, North Carolina, Russell Bunai, Joe Budway, Madja Courie, and provided entertainment for a two-day mahrajan on June 20 and 21, 1937, where guests and additional talent, like the Herro Trio, travelled from as far away as Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When the Syrian American Club of Massachusetts held its silver jubilee in 1938, Maloof Record label's Samy Attaya and Philip Solomon lent their talents to the celebration.

Philip Solomon appeared along with Maloof label musician Samuel H. Attaya. The Boston Globe. May 16, 1938. Courtesy of Newspapers.com

The combination of the 1940 US Census and World War II draft documents tell us that Philip Solomon found work at Rhode Island’s first radio station WEAN, taught violin, and enlisted in the US Army in 1942. WEAN broadcast from its studios in Providence’s Crown Hotel at 208 Weybossett Street. Previous to his enlistment, Solomon performed with Russell Bunai, Joe Budway, and May & Sam Sarkes at the Saint Elias Orthodox Church picnic in Syracuse, New York. Interestingly both Metropolitan Antony Bashir and Archbishop Samuel David conducted mass together despite the cultural divisions born of the Russo-Antacky split and the subsequent fallout resulting in divided archdiocese.

World War II draftcard for Philip F. Solomon. Courtesy of Ancestry.com

 

Philip Solomon played with a host of musicians, but he is best known for recording with Anton Abdelahad on “Al-Jazayir,” “La’Uli Bayt,”and “Il-Nylon,” and with Russell Bunai on “Hall Tadree.” The violin playing on both “Al-Jazayir” and “Il-Nylon” are particularly notable. Moreover, Solomon recorded with Emil Kasses on a personalized Kasses label track #252 A U B “Inn Albaraya,” and continued to work regular with Anton Abdelahad over the next two decades. From 1930s through the 1940s, Abdelahad’s band recorded at Kasper Gordon Studios in Boston.

Philip Solomon performed on "Il Nylon" along with Anton Abdelahad and Mike Hamway. Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection. https://soundcloud.com/user-387335530/anton-abdelahad-abdelahad-records-kgs-7001a-7002-a-il-nylon-i-ii

Although occupied with teaching, recording, and live performances, Philip Solomon met and married Virginia Thomas. Virginia worked for the Foreign Services and Office of War Information in London, England and Cairo, Egypt during World War II.   Philip and Virginia settled back in Providence where in March, 1951, Virginia had twins Leila and Philip J. Solomon.

The 1950s brought changes in the naturalization laws, the politics of the Cold War, and a new wave of Arab immigrants to the United States, Philip and Virginia's personal and professional lives changed dramatically also. In addition to two children, this period emerged as the Golden Age of the hafla and mahrajan. Performance dates in the late summer and fall of 1951 at the Mount Lebanon Club near Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the John Radd Post of the American Legion include Kahraman, Naif Agby, Djamal Aslan, and Philip Solomon. The Middle of the decade, 1955-1958, saw Solomon share the stage with Michel Akkaoui, Elie Baida, Odette Kaddo, surrounded by his usual ensemble mates. Meanwhile, in 1955, Virginia returned to full-time work outside the home working as a tax auditor for the Rhode Island branch of the Internal Revenue Service for the next twenty-two years. On February 2, 1958, the line-up of musicians including Karawan, Philip Solomon, John Nazarian, and Charles Kahla, plus Jack Ghanaim, backed the singer Karawan at a hafla sponsored by Saint Basil’s Catholic Church of Pawtucket and Central Falls. As the decade came to a close, the primary social event that occupied the minds of almost every Arabic-speaking person in Rhode Island, or possibly even all of New England for that matter, became the Annual Labor Day Mahrajan in Pawtucket. In the Fall of 1959, the Grand Mahrajan featured Hanan, John Nazarian, Philip Solomon, and Charles Kahla. Weeks after the Labor Day Weekend Mahrajan, the entire group of singers and musicians reconvened for the single-day hafla at the Elks Auditorium in Pawtucket. A similar line-up appear on Hanan & Ensemble's The Arabian Nightingale in 1959 including Jack Ghanaim, John Hyder, Hakki Obadia, Wadih El-Saffi, and Philip Solomon and Hanan's follow-up album Music of Arabia.

 

Anton Abdelahad and Philip Solomon, "Raks Camille," https://youtu.be/zxpxTxM6OCw

Rare Taksim by Philip Solomon. https://youtu.be/VuSqG05kMm4

As Arab immigrants and Arab American entered the age of US immigration reform, Philip Solomon, Naim Karacand, and Mike Hamway reached the last active years of their respective careers. Solomon played the mahrajan at Saint Ann’s on 13 August in Paterson with Amer and Sana Kadaj, the Knights of Saint George hafla with Kharaman and Joe Budway on 24 September, John Raad Post hafli 30 September, two different events in Philadelphia and Pawtucket, all in the summer and fall of 1961. Four of Rhode Island’s Syrian-Lebanese churches including one Melkite, one Maronite, and two Orthodox churches celebrated Philip Solomon’s life and career with a testimonial hafla 20 May 1962, in Cranston, New Jersey. Two years later, Anton Abdelahad, Mike Hamway, and Philip Solomon rocked the Aleppian Charity Society concert. On Sunday, June 20, 1965, Mike and George Hamway, Anton Abdelahad, and Philip Solomon jammed at the Father’s Day mahrajan in Paterson, New Jersey.  Mike Hamway had less than two months to live. By the end of the following summer in August, 1966, Anton Abdelahad, Naim Karacand, George Hamway, John Hyder, and Philip Solomon “rang the rafters” at the annual mahrajan hosted by the Syrian and Lebanese churches of Danbury, Connecticut.

Philip Solomon (violin second from the right front row), Ronnie Kirby, George Hamway, Mike Hamway, Nain Karacand,  Anton Abdelahad, Freddie Elias, Ramza Abdelahad, Yvonne Maalouf Rahwan, and Matilda Dada Stephens on Anton Abdelahad's Middle East Fantasy LP. Courtesy of Richard Breaux collection.

Much of Philip Solomon's energies went to his work with the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, while Virginia shifted gear from working for the IRS to self-employment as a tax consultant. Founded in 1944, the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra and music School's history explains that it encourages life-long "music listeners, teachers, learners, creators, and performers" and is the state's "only comprehensive, non-profit community school." How long exactly Philip worked with the Rhode Island Philharmonic remains unclear. He seems to have disappeared from the mahrajan and hafla circuit on the East Coast and he did not follow some of his fellow musicians into the nightclubs or restaurants. Virginia left the IRS in 1977 and within the year she started the VA Tax Services consultant business. Perhaps, in addition to collecting her retirement, she worked from home to care for Philip? We don't know for certain. Philip Solomon died 18 November 1979. He was seventy-four years old. 

Virginia Solomon continued to run her tax consulting business in East Providence, Rhode Island until 2007. Over the years she had been a correspondent to Al Hoda, the Lebanese American Journal, and the Akla newsletter in Australia. A devote Maronite and past-president of the Holy Rosary Sodality, Virginia Solomon died 13 April 2015.  

Richard M. Breaux

@ Midwest Mahjar