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

  Rev. Boutros Kahwagee (Pedro Kahwagi): The Recovered Voice of an Arab-Mexican Maronite Priest Rev. Pedro Kahwagi, c. 1939. The Day 9 May 1939. Courtesy of Newspapers.com Most of the recording artists we’ve featured on Midwest Mahjar have been people who immigrated to the United States in some capacity or were born in the United States. Exceptions, however, have included Nourhane , Sami el-Shawwa , and Prince Mohiuddin . The 78 RPM disc with singing by "Rev. Boutros Kahwagee" threw us for a loop! We pruchased the disc in December 2021. There was no indication of where Kahwagee/Kahwagi recorded any music. It could have been in Syria, Lebanon, the United States, or some other country. During an initial search, we hit an immediate dead end. There was no "Boutros Kahwagee" we could find who lived in any part of the United States. Newspapers and Ancestry.com searches revealed very little. Consequently, we put this disc to the side and focused on other musicians and rec...

  The Remarkable but Little-known Musical Career of Boston’s Helen Salem Rizk Philbrook Helen Salem Rizk, The Caravan , 03 November 1960. Courtesy of Newspapers.com Here at Midwest Mahjar, we have come to reflect on the amount of time we’ve spent in Boston, Massachusetts - actually and metaphorically. In our undergraduate days, the trek from Hanover, New Hampshire, to Boston provided two hours of excitement and entertainment.  In Boston, there was the historic Old North Church, Faneuil Hall, the 54th Massachusetts Regiment Memorial, and the monument dedicated to Crispus Attucks and the victims of the Boston Massacre. More recently, our connection to Boston has been through its Historic Syriantown community and the musical scene that emerged from it. We’ve written about G.S. Maloof , Anton Abdelahad , Ronnie Kirby , Tony Tawa , Lila Stephen , Najeeba Morad , Ramza Abdelahad, Yvonne Maalouf Rahwan, and Mathilda Dada Stephens . All lived most of their lives in and around Boston ...

  In Search of the Ensemble Members of Sam Shaheen’s Utica Oriental Orchestra 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 bro...