Moor Music: Aromates and "Ritournelles"

Today's tune is by the French ensemble Aromates and its leader and percussionist Michèle Claude. The ensemble fuses the ancient and contemporary, uses old and new instruments, and explores into gypsy and Cuban rhythms and jazz in its music. It's first album, Jardin des Myrtes (Garden of Myrtles - 2005), features traditional Arab-Andalusian songs played by the musicians on traditional instruments. The music takes you straight back to an Umayyad court in Spain - you might even be in the presence of the Caliph himself. Today's tune, Ritournelles can be found as the 8th track on Jardin des Myrtes.

Moor Music: Françoise Atlan, Mohammed Briouel and L'Orchestre Arabo-Andalou de Fes with "La Mujer - Soubhana"

Today's song is by Françoise Atlan, a French singer born into a Sephardic Jewish family. She undertook musical studies, eventually finishing with degrees from St. Etienne and Aix-en-Provence conservatories. She has a natural voice, and is known for singing "nawbas" usually reserved for male singers. She has performed solo and in groups, notably with the group Aksak that concentrated on Turkish, Greek and Armenian songs. As a solo artist, she is considered one of the best performers of Sephardic romance songs. She is joined on the recording by Mohammed Briouel and his L'Orchestre Arabo-Andalou de Fes. Briouel is a Moroccan musician who focuses on Arab-Muslim music and Sephardic music. You can find this song, La Mujer - Soubhana, on the 2003 album Andalussyat, which explores the different types of music in Andalusia in Moorish Spain.

Minting Hits: Noura Mint Seymali and "Tzenni"

Accompanied by her husband on guitar, with drums and bass (played upside down by recent random tunist Ousmane Tourè, Noura Mint Seymali belts out Tzenni in today's random tune. From Mauritania, Seymali is from a long line of griots (musician, songwriter, and messenger caste in many parts of Africa). Part of this tradition is the pedigree - Seymali's mother was the equivalent of a national star and her father wrote Mauritania's national anthem. Seymali has created a sound melding traditional Moorish sounds with pop and funk, slowly stripping away the trappings and leaving something uniquely essential in the music while augmenting it with her amazing singing. Tzenni can be found on her 2014 album of the same name.

Give Me Moor: Aromates and "Ritournelles"

One of my favorite books when I was growing up was a giant Readers Digest tome that laid out all the histories of all the known civilizations in the world. I would pore over that book, looking at the maps of the civilizations. The ancient civilizations were the ones that interested me most - those in the Middle East between the Tigris and Euphrates, the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans and their war for Mediterranean supremacy with the Carthaginians. One thing that I found really interesting, however, was the rise of the Islamic world after the fall of the Byzantine Empire, and how they nearly matched Rome by encircling the Mediterranean. If the Umayyad Caliphate had continued to expand, or if later Vienna hadn't held against the Ottomans, the history of Europe might have been much different. On the other hand, if the Moors had not conquered most of Spain, the history of Spain might have been much different also. Spain was largely under the rule of Muslims for almost 500 years, forging a deep connection with what would become Spanish society. The influence of the Moors is everywhere in Spain - its architecture, its language, and its music to name a few. It is said that the last Muslim ruler in Spain, Muhammad XII of Granada, reined his horse on a small hill overlooking Granada and the Alhambra and wept and sighed before turning away and riding into exile.

Today's tune is by the French ensemble Aromates and its leader and percussionist Michèle Claude. The ensemble fuses the ancient and contemporary, uses old and new instruments, and explores into gypsy and Cuban rhythms and jazz in its music. It's first album, Jardin des Myrtes (Garden of Myrtles - 2005), features traditional Arab-Andalusian songs played by the musicians on traditional instruments. The music takes you straight back to an Umayyad court in Spain - you might even be in the presence of the Caliph himself. Today's tune, Ritournelles can be found as the 8th track on Jardin des Myrtes.

Short and Sweet: Sulman and "Maria"

The next few posts are going to be short and sweet, as Megan and I are celebrating our 19th wedding anniversary this weekend and I may not have a lot of time to write until Tuesday. And, that's fitting because today's random song, Maria by Sulman, has occasioned one of those rare times that I cannot find any information about the artist. Sulman is apparently Spanish, as his song appears on the album Pure Spain: Tapas (2005). He made a music video of the song, but as much as I culled through the internet, I could not find any information on Sulman. Maybe he was a one-hit Spanish wonder. Maria is interesting - it has a definite R&B groove, some talk on it reminiscent of hip-hop or rap, and if listen very carefully you might hear a hint of flamenco or maybe the Moorish influence in Spain suggested by the artist's name.

If you have any information on the artist, please feel free to post!