Antoine Hage: Life of a Second Wave Violinist/Oudist Living Between New York and California
Antoine Hage: Life of a Second Wave Violinist/Oudist Living Between New York and California
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| Antoine M. Hage with his violin, The Caravan 2 May 1957. Courtesy of Newspapers.com |
Closer to the turn of the twentieth century, in Buffalo, New York, some 350 Syrian immigrants and Syrian Americans lived in the city along the shores of Lake Erie and across the border from Canada. Buffalo's Syrian community in 1907 boasted at least two restaurants, approximately seven businesses with storefront properties, and Saint John Maronite Church (1904). Just 25 miles north, another 350 Syrians, seemingly more established, lived in Niagara Falls, New York. Social, cultural, and political ties soon bound the Syrian communities in the cities of Buffalo, Niagara Falls, and Utica (200 miles east with a Syrian population near 300) together.
The development of the hafla and mahrajan circuit in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s further accentuated the connections between these cities and local musicians frequently journeyed back and forth playing at each communities functions. Families across these cities were joined via connections to Greater Syria, marital bonds, religious congregations, and other associations. These ties were wholly developed by the end of World War II when the second wave of Arab immigrants began to further increase the size of these communities in Utica, Niagara Falls, and Buffalo.
Antoine M. Hage (or Antoine M. El-Hage) was born in the northern outskirts of Beirut, Greater Syria in an area called Jdeideh or Jdaideh on 17 March 1927 during the time when what eventually became Lebanon was under French Mandate. We know very little about his childhood or youth, but by the time he left the Port of Lebanon for Genoa, Italy, destined for New York on a tourist visa in 1955, he was eighteen and already knew how to play oud and violin. He arrived at New York, New York on 8 February 1955 on board the S.S. Independence and eventually made his way to Brooklyn before heading upstate toward Buffalo. He connected with friends and family and regional musicians like Semi Sheheen. This connection further attached Hage to the hafla and mahrajan circuit linking Syrian and Lebanese American churches, temples, mosques, and cultural organizations along the eastern coast of the United States from Maine to Florida.
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| Antoine Hage arrives in the United States in 1955. Courtesy of Ancestry.com |
Roughly a year after his arrival, Antoine Hage entrenched himself into the circle of well-known and experienced Arab American singers and musicians. On 5 February 1956, he accompanied Odette Kaddo, Nasser Kaddo on oud, and George Aide on derbeke, for an event sponsored by the Al Kareem Club in Florida. Weeks later, on March 2, 1956, Hage performed in West Palm Beach alongside John Fayad, Mosa Kalooky, Louis Haddad, Fred Rahal, and Mike Shashaty. Attendees received more than they bargained for as surprise guest Joe Budway also played that day and shocked audiences by dancing with the crowds while the other booked musicians entertained guests. Just a day later, over 450 convention goes flocked to hafla sponsored by the Syrian Lebanon American Club of Miami. Featured performers included Hanan backed by Joe Budway on oud, Antoine Hage on violin, and Ray Saood on derbeke. Additional guest performances by Odette Kaddo, Little Sami Jourdak, and Emil Kasses rounded out the evening. Reports spread that during the convention, importer and back-up musician, Fred Rahal, “sold all of his Danny Thomas ‘Ataba’ records,” which also featured oud playing by Toufic Barham. An annual radio party at Miami’s Syrian-Lebanon clubhouse on March 11 and subsequent “Dream Boat” moonlight cruise spotlit Hanan, Joe Budway, Antoine Hage, and Eddie Kochak singing “a new rendition” of his “Arabian Mambo.” Emil Kasses, Joe Budway, Eddie Kochak, John Fayad, Al Fahmie, and Antoine Hage held a reported “three-hour Arabic jam session” as a part of the boat excursion. Antoine Hage waisted very little time making an impression on his fellow Arab American musicians. All this unfolded in roughly a month’s time, only a year after his arrival in the United States.
By summer’s beginning and midpoint, Antoine Hage returned to upstate New York to a host of gigs. Around Memorial Day, he paired up to sing with his sister Claire Khoury Daher for a televised appearance on Channel 2 in Niagara, New York. On 27 June 1956, Antoine Hage wed Teresa Noah. A first-generation US-born Arab American, Teresa opened the Cedars of Lebanon Restaurant & Night Club in Buffalo in 1956 with her sisters Ann Noah Pitzella and Rose Noah Abraham. Antoine then segued from several regional performances in the Midwest and back south to Birmingham, Alabama, July 6-8, 1956 for the Southern Federation of Syrian Lebanese Clubs convention to entertain a packed crowd along with Hanan, Joe Budway, and Charles Hayek. Of course, Birmingham had a large population of Syrian and Lebanese Americans who back in 1910 established a Maronite church, and a Melkite church in 1920. Both Columbia Records and Maloof Phonograph Records singing priest Rev. George Aziz and oudist Elie Younes had ties to Birmingham, Alabama. In the Midwest, Antoine Hage sang at a more formal hafla that marked the dedication of the mosque in Dearborn. Fadwa Abeid, Joe Budway, Francis Saad accompanied Hage.
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Antoine Hage, "Dance Al Gezlan," - https://youtu.be/vJvk08l9WqA Antoine Hage, ""Dabke" - https://youtu.be/BRlhDIL85lo |
When the well-known Lebanese singer Sabah (Jeanette Geges Feghali) toured the United States in 1956-57, Teresa Hage booked her at the Cedars of Lebanon and Antoine Hage became one of a dozen musicians in the country to accompany her on stage. Supported by the Aleppian Foundation, Sabah’s Brooklyn event also featured Najeeba Morad Karam, Joe Budway, Lila Stephan, and Anton Abdelahad. Then on December 23, 1956, the Cedars of Lebanon hosted Sabah, Najeeba Morad Karam, Anwar Mansey, Joe Budway, Antoine Hage, and George Jacobs. According to one report, Ann, Rose and Teresa had "the restaurant built to resemble the old country atmosphere, and with the presence of beautiful scenes of Lebanon...Arabic music and entertainment...[filled the] weekend." The following year brought benefit converts sponsored by Saint Basil's Seminary in Rochester, a hafla for the American Lebanon Club in Massillon, Ohio, with Najeeba Morad Karam, Joe Budway, and Paul Salem, and then back to the Cedars of Lebanon with old friends Fadwa Abeid and Joe Budway in August 1957. Nearly every Arab American musician active of the hafla and/or mahrajan circuit played The Cedars of Lebanon. Visiting or touring musicians from Lebanon or Syria, however, drew the largest crowds.
In addition to Sabah, other Lebanese musicians who toured the United States also performed alongside Antoine Hage. Between the early months of 1957 and late summer of 1958, the Southern Lebanon Syrian American Club of Orlando sponsored a Fourth of July weekend convention with entertainment by Elie Baida, Danny Thomas, Hanan, Antoinne Hage, and Virginia Atter. By the Fall of 1958, Wadih El Safi toured the United States and he, along with Antoine Hage and Jalil Azzouz, played at a concert sponsored by Saint Mary's Orthodox Church in Detroit. To familiarize audiences in the United States with El Safi, in case they had not already heard his music, The Caravan quoted Mohammed Abdel-Wahab as saying, "Wadih Safi is unique in his presentation of authentic Arabic songs which reveal the exciting spirit of the romantic Middle East" and Farid El-Atrash, "Only Wadih can convey the universal emotions in the pulsing rhythms, and the longing and desire which he expresses in his spine tingling melodies." El Safi needed no other endorsements as with the exception of Om Kulthum, Abdel-Wahab, and El-Atrash, were the most well-known and bestselling Arab singers in the 1950s United States.
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| Ad for Antoine Hage, Wadih El Safi, and Jalil Azzouz in Detroit, The Caravan, 4 September 1968. Courtesy of Newspapers.com |
The sites where Antoine Hage performed the most were undoubtedly the Cedars of Lebanon Restaurant & Supper Club at 761 Main Street in Buffalo, New York in the 1950s and Hackney House in Syracuse, New York in the 1960s and 1970s. The Cedars of Lebanon also served as the name for the Syrian and Lebanese club in Rochester, New York. As noted above, Teresa, Ann, and Rose Abraham opened the Cedars of Lebanon Restaurant & Night Club in Buffalo in 1956. Within its first four years, Sabah, Wadih El Safi, and Nadia Chamoun had all played the in Buffalo at the restaurant. Antoine and Teresa also opened Hajji Baba in Syracuse in 1961. According to Paul Hage, the Hages opened a second Hajji Babas clear across the country and operated it from 1969 until 2003, first at 347 Broadway in Chula Vista then at 104 Mission Valley Center in San Diego, California. For the first five or so months in 1967, Antoine Hage headlined regularly at the Hackney House. News reports describe Hackney House as a restaurant where customers could listen to music, view “beautiful, authentic, artistic, belly-dancers,” and eat gourmet food “specializing in Prime Ribs and Steaks.” The bellydancers worked in three-day shifts and whether they were of Middle Eastern ancestry is speculative, but possible. They went by stage names like Sylvana, Zakara, Wanda, Azorina, and Karoun. Mohin Tawil, a Dominican-born person of Lebanese descent, and his wife Patricia Nagel Tawil owned and operated Hackney House in Syracuse. In 1967, 1970, and 1974, Antoine Hage routinely performed “two shows-Thursdays” and three shows on Fridays and Saturdays. Visits to their second home in San Diego meant that Hage also performed in Middle Eastern restaurants there including the Istanbul Restaurant at 1250 Prospect in La Jolla.
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| Ad for Hackney House featuring Hage The Post Standard, April 19, 1974. Courtesy of Newspapers.com |
Not all of Antoine Hage’s latter-career performances took place in Middle-Eastern-themed nightclubs and restaurants. On 6 May, 1967, Hage joined Elie Baida, Hanna Rashid, and Philip Gabriel in a fundraiser hafla for Saint Michael’s Orthodox Church in Binghamton to pay off its mortgage. Similarly, Saint Mary’s Syrian Orthodox Church in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, booked veteran musicians Eddie Kochak, Semi Sheheen, and Antoine Hage for its 24th annual hafla in 1974. While regional Federations of Syrian and Lebanese clubs offered musicians the opportunity to go south, to the Midwest and west, Hage played both coasts because he lived between New York and California. There were engagement at the Hage's restaurants in both places, gigs at other Middle Eastern restaurants like the Istanbul Restaurant in San Diego, and special events where Antoine performed to celebrate the opening of Dave's Fine Furniture owned by Bahjat and Laila Deiranieh in Chula Vista as well.
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| Ad highlighting Antoine Hage at Istanbul. UCSD Triton Times, May 12, 1970. |
Antoine and Teresa’s son Paul Hage followed in his father’s footsteps and works as a musician – he currently has a band Paul Hage and Mirage. The band’s website describes its musical style as “Fusing elements of middle eastern, nuevo-flamenco, and contemporary jazz.”
After over 50 years of marriage and working as a restaurant owner, Teresa Hage died in 2008. At the time, Antoine and the couple’s three children were still living; however, their son Peter died, followed by Antoine on 8 January 2016. Katherine A. Hage, Teresa and Antoine's only daughter, passed away in July 2022. Antoine Hage’s official obituary said nothing about his music career. He represents a generation of nightclub/supper club era Arab American musicians who we’ve lost in the past five or six years. Today, his son Paul continues the Hage family musical legacy. For this we are grateful.
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