Midwest Mahjar: The Recorded Sounds of the Arabic-Speaking Diaspora in the United States at 78 RPM

Wadeeh Bagdady Photograph of Wadeeh Bagdady from the Arabphon Catalogue. Courtesy of William Albert Ansara.  In 1920 New York, as the Victor Talking Machine Company and Columbia Phonograph Company moved out of the Arabic-language record market, long-time phonograph dealer turned record producer A.J. Macksoud and composer and music teacher Alexander Maloof created their respective namesake record labels that all but cornered the market on Syrian/Lebanese phonograph records for the next ten to fifteen years. Both Abraham J. Macksoud and Alexander Maloof operated their businesses in New York’s Little Syria, which centered around Washington Street from Battery Park to Rector Street. Singer and oudist Louis Wardiny and vocalist Salim Doumani cut a majority’s share of the known songs on both the Macksoud and Maloof labels. Both companies employed violin virtuoso Naim Karacand in their labels’ ensembles and Karacand figured prominently on a number of bo...

Mohammed El-Bakkar Photo from the Caravan  10 December 1959. Courtesy of Newspapers.com The popularity of Arab and Arab American music in the 1950s and 1960s United States coincided with a number of cultural and political developments resulting in synthesis of Arab, African, African American, and Arab American cultural expressions. To some cultural critics this fusion was little more than Arab kitsch -- a centuries old tradition of westerners stereotypically imagining the Middle East. To others this synthesis was revolutionary, improvisational African American jazz met improvisational Near Eastern taqsim on a late-night stroll down Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue. Mohammed El-Bakkar   or Mohamed El-Bakkar or Mohamed Backar was born 12 September 1913. Most sources published in the last twenty years list him as Lebanese, but sources contemporary to El-Bakkar’s time argue that he was Egyptian. Obituaries and the travel document submitted by Mohamme...