In Search of the Ensemble Members of Sam Shaheen’s Utica Oriental Orchestra
In Search of the Ensemble Members of Sam Shaheen’s Utica Oriental Orchestra
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| Mary Shaheen, Sam Shaheen, Edward Shkane, Anthony Shaheen, and James Shaheen. 1953. |
The Arab American music scene in 1950s upstate-New York embodied a spirit of complexity and innovation matching that of Detroit, and to a lesser degree Boston and Brooklyn, yet much of our attention in previous posts has focused on the Shaheen or Sheheen family. Sam Shaheen has been the subject of a previous Midwest Mahjar post but we have written very little about the musicians outside his family that made up his ensemble or takht. He went by Semi Sheheen, Sami Shaheen, Saaleem Shaheen, Sam Shaheen, and other variations of this name. Shaheen drew members of his orchestra from Utica-based Lebanese and Syrian American families old and new resulting in a polished professional outfit that rivaled any ensemble on the east coast. The first members of Shaheen’s Utica Orchestra were his father Anthony (1892-1984) and younger brother James (1925-2005). Sam's youngest sister, Mary (1933-2011), sometimes danced along with the group. We still, however, know very little about the remainder of musicians who comprised Shaheen’s Utica’s Orchestra and the city’s Arab American musical soundscape. By exploring the lives of Elias Mardany (1898-1989), Anthony Barimo (1914-2003), Edward Shkane (1920-2009), John Fanoun (1910-1997), and George Hajjar (1936-2000) we hope to change this.
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| Sam Shaheen c 1954. From the Caravan 2 December 1954. Courtesy of Newspapers.com |
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| Ray Shaheen. c. 1967. The Post Star, 13 June 1967. Courtesy of Newspapers.com |
According to local parish histories, immigrants from Greater Syria began settling in Utica, New York around 1885 with a community forming in earnest around 1900. Already some one hundred souls, mostly from Aleppo, came to the Mohawk Valley, eventually putting down their roots along the Albany to Buffalo corridor heading toward the US-Canadian border marked by Niagara Falls. Dr. Nagib Abdou’s Syrian business directory printed in 1907, put Utica’s population of Syrians at 300. The heart of Syrian business and homes, at first, centered around Bleecker Street. Within three years, Utica’s Syrian population doubled. Soon, community members built Saint Louis Gonzaga Maronite Church (1910), Saint George’s Antiochian Orthodox Church (1911), and Saint Basil Syrian Catholic Melkite Church (1916).
The backbone of Utica and its economy were the textile mills and railroads. By World War I, sixty percent of Utica’s 90, 000 residents toiled in the textile industry. This included Syrian immigrants Nicholas Barimo and Anthony Shaheen who immigrated in 1909 and 1914 respectively.
Anthony Shaheen arrived in the United States around 1914, his future wife, Rose Joseph, had already been in the country since 1904. Tony supported the family working as a knitter in a local cotton mill. Saleem or Samuel, shortened to Sami or Semi, appears to have been the second oldest child and eldest son. He was one of nine children in all. Sam was born in 1918, James in 1925, Ralph in 1928, and Raymond in 1932. As the Shaheen household grew, immigration restrictions in the form of the 1924 Immigration Act reduced people coming from Greater Syria to a trickle. Arriving just years before were the Shaheen’s friends, Nicholas Barimo and Marguerite Mardany Barimo in 1909. Barimo started out as a cotton mill worker but then became a grocer. The couple had their son Anthony in 1914. Elias Mardany either arrived in the United States in 1908, the year before his sister Marguerite, or immigrated a few years later in 1911. Mardany supported himself with a number of jobs over the years. He did everything from work in a bedmaking factory to clerk at a grocery store to self-employment as a billiard parlor owner and proprietor of the Royal Bowling Alley. Klelia and Elias Shkane made the journey to the United States in 1920 while Klelia was pregnant. Months after her arrival, she gave birth to her fourth child Edward E. Shkane. Edward became the first of two Shkane children born in the United States. His older siblings were born in Syria or Egypt. Like others from Greater Syria before him, Elias Shkane secured work at the cotton mill in 1920.
Utica, New York’s population grew significantly between 1900 to 1930. Approximately 56, 300 people called Utica home at the turn of the twentieth century. By 1910, that number increased to about 74, 400. Gabriel S. Maloof, who later owned an Arabic records store in Boston, even lived in Utica between 1915 and 1917. Almost 20,000 more residents occupied the City of Utica by 1920 and the city’s population peaked in 1930 at an estimated 101,700 people. Among those who immigrated to Utica in 1922, was Joseph R. Zogby, who later met and married Cecelia Zogby. Cecelia’s parents came to Pennsylvania in about 1910 (The couple later had James and John Zogby). Syrian and Lebanese immigration to Utica peaked by 1920, as the Johnson-Reed Act restricted immigration from the entire Levant to a few hundred per year to the United States. Anti-immigrant sentiment mixed with nativism, racism, and pseudo-science creating a backlash that lasted until 1965. Of course, family reunification policies and immigration through Canada or Mexico helped a handful skirt around these restrictions, which technically began to loosen slightly after World War II. Sam Shaheen’s brother, Ralph, served in World War II, and Ray served in Korea. George Hajjar was among those people who immigrated to the United States during this period.
Sam joined his first orchestra in 1941 at the age of 19, a half-dozen years after George Hajjar entered the world. Born 1 June 1936, in Aleppo, Syria, to Michael and Adjiba Balbous Hajjar, George Hajjar arrived in the United States around 1956 and became the last of this quartet of musicians to join Sam Shaheen’s Orchestra. George’s father, Michael, died in Syria, and George came to the United States with his mother, brother, Niem, and three sisters Violet, Maggie, and Nadia. The family attended Saint Basil Church. Where George picked up his oud skills remains unclear. By the time of his arrival, he had enough proficiency on the oud to place ads hoping to book gigs in Brooklyn’s Caravan newspaper. Meanwhile, Sam attended Utica Free Academy and he honed his talents at the Laporte Violin School and the “former Utica School of Music.”
When Sams Shaheen first gathered his own orchestra around 1951 the first lineup included Edward Shkane and Sam’s siblings - Anton and James Shaheen. Of course, Sam played violin, Ed, the oud, Anton, the derbecki, and James, the riqq. The group played mostly on the local music circuit and at the various hafla and mahrajan hosted by the predominantly Arab American churches in Utica and the Albany to Niagara corridor. They could be as small as three or as large as eight musicians. Some ensemble members appeared on rare occasions – Michael Zaloom (1897-1977) and Sam Mekel. Other local musicians circulated in and out of or joined the ensemble at various times. For example, in February 1952, Djamal Aslan visited Utica for an Aleppian Charity fundraiser sponsored by Saint Louis of Gonzaga. Violinists included Sam Shaheen and Michael Zaloom ; Edward Shkane and Sam Mekel stood in on oud; Anthony Barimo played derbecki, Ray Shaheen joined on riqq, and Elias Mardany and John Fanoun sang vocals. Over 500 people reportedly attended the event. A month later, when former Baidaphon Records-turned-Alamphon Records star Elie Baida visited Utica, Sam Shaheen, Anthony Barimo, and Elias Mardany all accompanied him. The following year, in February 1953, Sam Shaheen, Edward Shkane, and Michael Zaloom performed at the pre-lent hafla at Saint Basil, much to the delight of an appreciative crowd.
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| Edward Shkane served in New Guinea and the Philippines in the US Army during World War II. |
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| Edward Shkane's WWII Draft Card. Courtesy of Ancestry.com |
Over the years, Shaheen came to increasingly rely on a core of musicians – Edward Shkane, Anthony Barimo, Elias Mardany, and eventually Ray Shaheen and George Hajjar. Utica musicians traveled to Brooklyn and a growing number of popular Arab American musicians played in Utica. In 1952, for the 15th annual benefit sponsored by the Saint Elias Society featured Elie Baida accompanied by the trio of Elias Mardany, Anthony Barimo, and Sam Sheheen. The Trio also backed Mohammed El-Bakkar on 25 April 1954 at the 17th Saint Elias Annual Benefit in Utica. The acts Utica musicians backed and accompanied, and the venues where they played, soon became even more familiar.
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| Mohammed El Bakkar teamed up with Elias Mardany, Sam Shaheen, and Anthony Barimo in Utica, Caravan 15 April 1954. Courtesy of Newspapers.com |
At the close of 1954, from December 1954 until May 1955, Sam Shaheen played in a residency of sorts at Boston’s Club Zara while he simultaneously studied at the Boston Conservatory. Established in 1953, and managed by Joe Teebagy and Laurice Rizk, Club Zara became one of the premier nightclubs to cater to Boston’s Arabic-speaking communities and patrons in search of Middle Eastern, including Arab, Armenian, and Greek cultures and entertainment. According to cultural studies and dance scholar Amy Smith, Club Zara operated from 1952 until 1960 and at 390 Tremont Street, and later 475 Tremont Street. In addition to Club Zara, The Averof, The Middle East, Club Khaim, El Morocco, and the Athenian Corner dominated Boston’s nightclub and supper club era from the 1950s through the 1990s. Most of these operated in the 1950s. After his six-month stint at Club Zara, Sam Shaheen resumed playing with a who’s who of Arab American music on the hafla and mahrajan circuit. For example, on June 19, 1955, Sam Shaheen, Anthony Barimo, and Louis Mardany accompanied Hanan and John Nazarian at Saint George Orthodox Church annual outing in Smith Grove, New York. Hosts expected an estimated 2,500 people to attend the event. A week later, Shaheen and Anthony Barimo joined Antoine Hage and Claire Hage Daher at an event sponsored by the United Lebanese American Club in Utica.
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| Anthony J. Barimo served in the US Army in WWII. |
Not all the excitement in the orchestra members’ lives related to music. Elias Mardany became the first of the group to wed when he married Anna Peters in 1926. Edward Shkane married Margaret Joseph on 25 June 1949, and Anthony Barimo and Sam Shaheen married Frances Meier and Helen Sadalah by the mid-1950s. Finally, George Hajjar wed Anita Namy on 29 June 1957. Sadly, two years into his marriage Hajjar suffered “head, chest, and nose injuries” when he lost control of his car and hit a tree. He had since taken up work as a barber and was on his way to work when the accident occurred. Seemingly prone to bad luck, Hajjar suffered injuries again when his parked car was rear ended in 1960.
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| Elias Mardany, c. 1953. Courtesy of UOD March 11, 1953. |
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| Elias Mardany's WWII draft card. Courtesy of Ancestry.com |
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| George Hajjar took solo gigs but also played oud as a part of Shaheen Utica Orchestra. Caravan 13 February 1958. Courtesy of Newspapers.com |
We know the least about Shaheen’s uncle Tonus Baaraad or Badra. Word has it that Tonus Baaraad was Sam Shaheen’s maternal uncle. According to legend, he worked and lived as a tailor in Amman, Jordan, and via a missionary with the Red Cross during World War I, he acquired a sweater, at some point, knitted by Miss Marguerite Todd from New Rochelle, New York. She sewed a tag with her name and address in the sweater. By 1954, Tonus reached out to Todd, now Mrs. Marguerite Todd Beveridge, and although he was too poor to travel at that moment, Baaraad’s son, Ibrahim, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren, including a namesake Tonus, came to New York in 1959 with assistance from the World Council of Churches. The elder Tonus, it seems, later made the trip himself and recorded with his nephew on an LP in 1961 playing the nye accompaniment. In the absence of records of the elder Tonus entering the United States, it’s also possible that the words “khal” or mother’s brother were confused with “ibn khali” uncle’s son.
John Fanoun, a Utica resident and son of Syrian emigrants Michael and Zackie Fanoun, sang with Shaheen's orchestra and even appeared on the fifth track "Arabic Song" on Side 1 of the 1961 LP. Born in 1910 in New York, John Fanoun's parents immigrated in 1908 and 1905, operated a grocery store in Utica since approximately 1917. Michael Fanoun had previously been a fruit peddler. John and his siblings clerked in the family grocery store. Around 1949, Fanoun left the United States and two years later he married Emelda Giongi on 2 April 1951. Emelda and John attended Saint Basil's Melkite Church and together they had Michael, Louie, Fred, and Diane. John Fanoun is the only other performer beside Sam Shaheen and Tonus Baaraad mentioned by name on the "Music of the Middle East" LP. Fanoun ran and took over the family store until he retired from work around 1973.
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| An older John Fanoun. He stopped performing in public after 1974. Courtesy of UOD August 15, 1997. |
Shaheen promised copies of his 1961 LP “Music of the Middle East” would end up at Syracuse University, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, and the United Nation’s music Library. Two of the twelve compositions were his own and the others emerged as standards on the mahrajan circuit. Still other cuts like “Jaz Ayer” had been recorded back when Alexander Maloof released his two piano solo sides on Victor back in 1913.
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Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection. Sam Shaheen, "Polka El Habeeb," https://youtu.be/0qxPUw9Uy0M Sam Shaheen, John Fanoun, "Arabic Song" "La, La, La." https://youtu.be/BrTBZZrOSZI |
Much of the Arab American musical landscape in 1960s Utica and the surrounding area centered around the various hafla and mahrajan hosted by Saint Louis Gonzaga Maronite Church and few, if any of these, excluded George Hajjar and Sam Shaheen. The church’s annual outing and mahrajan, usually held in July in New York Mills, became the region's signature event and people traveled from all over upstate New York and New England to attend. People in Utica’s Arab American community typically hosted smaller social events and fundraisers in April and September. The Saint Elias Society tended to organize the spring function and the Saint Moura Ladies Society put together the spring festivities. For example, the Saint Moura Ladies Society hosted a hafla that featured Elias Abourjaily and Ray and Sam Shaheen, on 30 September 1961. Two years later, Olga “Kharaman” Agby fronted Sam Shaheen, Anthony Barimo, and Ed Shkane in April and Hanna Rashid performed, backed by Sam Shaheen in September 1963. Over the next few years, Shaheen, Hajjar, and/or both accompanied Anton Abdelahad and Ronnie Kirby in 1965, Emil Kassis in 1966, and Elie Baida and Antoine Hage in 1967. Toward the end of the decade, Sam Shaheen joined Anton Abdelahad and a small ensemble hired to entertain at the seventh annual hafla sponsored by the Syrian American Club and its affiliates in 1969. That summer the Saint Louis Gonzaga Maronite Church annual maharajan included Laurice Peters, Elie Baida, and Sam and Ray Shaheen.
The Utica Orchestra once made up of Sam Shaheen, Anthony Barimo, Louis Mardany, Edward Shkane, and George Hajjar was, again, mostly made up of Sam’s brothers by the 1970s. When the Saint Elias Society held its 34th annual hafla on April 4, 1970, Sam Shaheen, Raymond Shaheen, and Joe Budway backed their old friend Hanan. Approximately, two months later, Sam, Ray, and Anthony Shaheen accompanied Elie Baida during the second annual Saint Louis Gonzaga Church’s Saint Mary’s Guild and Holy Name Society.
Announcements advertising hafla and mahrajan appeared in the regional or national press much less by the 1970s and 1980s. It’s clear that by the late 1960s, Sam Shaheen and George Hajjar set out to groom and guide a new generation of musicians. An article advertising the summer mahrajan in Utica announced, in addition to Elie Baida, Sam & Ray Shaheen, John Massoud, and John Fanoun; “Sam Shaheen’s Utica teenage orchestra” was also slated to perform.
In 1989, Elias Mardany became one of the first core members of Utica’s Arab American music scene to pass on. Nearly 90 years old, he was the ensemble’s senior member. John Fanoun died 12 August 1997 at 87 years old. He had four surviving children Mike, Louis, Fred, and Diane. Although the youngest musician to be a member of Sam Shaheen’s Utica Orchestra, George Hajjar died 20 April 2000, Hajjar’s three children, Donna, Michael, and David survived him, as did his wife Anita. Interestingly, Hajjar passed three months after Sam Shaheen. Anthony Barimo, who worked as a barber and shoe salesman most of his life, passed three years later, in 2003, at the age of 89. Finally, Edward Shkane died 2 May 2009, not in Utica, New York, but Springfield, Ohio. Ray Shaheen preceded Shkane in death by just over three months.
Today, Utica’s Syrian and Lebanese American communities still have their historic churches and their annual Taste of Lebanon and Mediterranean Food festivals in July and September.
Special thanks to Bob T. and Gabrielle M.H.
Richard M. Breaux
© Midwest Mahjar
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