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

  Louis Kawam: Jamming with Arab American Musicians Old & Young Some of the best musicians ever, never front their own band. They are not among the orchestra or ensemble leaders, and if we’re fortunate enough, they have left behind a piece of their creative genius in a credited or uncredited recording. Perhaps their names escaped mention in the liner notes, or their surname shows up on a label suggesting they composed, wrote, or performed a piece, if for nothing else than pure posterity. Most of this is true for oudist Louis Kawam. Born 18 or 20 July 1913 in New York City, Elias Bashir Kawam entered the world one of three, and the only male child of his parents Bashir Abdallah Kawam and Assna Kawam. Immigrants from Aleppo and Damascus, Greater Syria in 1905, the couple crossed the ocean departing from Marseilles on board a shipped named the Roma and settled on the main west-east corridor of New York’s Little Syria two – Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. There at   178 Atlantic ...

  Jalil Azzouz: A Palestinian Oudist at Home on the Midwest Mahrajan Circuit Jalil Azzouz, 1956. Photo courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection. The second wave of Arab immigration to the United States began after World War II, which officially ended in September 1945. The government continued to enforce quotas on immigrants to the US from Middle Eastern countries. Even immigrants to the US from Palestine, which came under British mandate rule, faced restrictions. No matter Great Britain’s ally status during the second World War, nor small changes in the ability of certain groups of immigrants newly permitted to become naturalized citizens, the second wave of Arab emigrants, especially those from Palestine and Jordan, became more visibly present in their sponsorship of events on the eastern, midwestern, and southern hafli and mahrajan circuits. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Palestinian youth grew increasing impatient with the British Mandate government’s  persecution of P...

Emil Kasses: From the Tip of Florida All the Way Up to Canada and Various Haflis and Mahrajans Along the Way Emil J. Kasses, Norwalk H.S. Yearbook, 1946. p. 64. Courtesy of Ancestry.com Some of the best known, first generation US-born, Arab American musicians of the 78 RPM era included the likes of Anton Abdelahad and Eddie Kochak . Both these musicians rose to prominence in the 1940s and 1950s – Abdelahad on his self-titled record label and Kochak on Nilephon Records- and both became extremely popular on the hafli and mahrajan circuits in the 1950s and 1960s. Emil Kasses (Kassis or Kassas) stands out as one of their less well-remembered, yet equally talented peers, whose career spanned from the 1940s well into the 1990s. Despite Emil’s popularity among Arab Americans of multiple generations, his 78 RPM disc are rare, although not considered valuable. That we can document, Kasses recorded two songs on four sides of his personal Emil Kasses record label #251 A-B “Mo’...

Fadwa Abeid or Fadwa Abed Fadwa Abed in 1954 at Fordson High School in Dearborn, Michigan. Fordson Yearbook (1954), 144. Courtesy of Ancestry.com  Since we launched Midwest Mahjar, rare has been the opportunity to speak to any of the artists who performed during the 78 RPM era. Most are no longer with us. We've communicated with the children of some musicians. Family members we've managed to track down include the grandchildren or great-grandchildren of 78-era Arab American musicians. "Fadwa Obeid" is on a Wiki-list of living Lebanese women singers, but with no birthdate or link to additional information. An Arabic-language Wikipedia entry offers information about the height of her career in the 1970s and makes vague reference to her retirement, but says nothing of her early life, early career, or life in retirement.  Imagine our surprise when researching Arab American singer Fadwa Abeid, we located contact information for her.     ...