July 2020 – Gharamophone

On the approach to Eid al-Kabir (also known as Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice), it felt appropriate to update this entry on Saoud l’Oranais, first posted on this site’s predecessor in 2015. Here, then, are both sides of his c. 1930 recording of the hawzi piece, “El Idd El Kebir” (العيد الكبير), composed by Tlemceni poet Ahmad Ben Triki sometime in the seventeenth century during his exile in Morocco. As its name implies, the song-text performed here by the renowned Jewish musician invokes the Muslim holiday which commemorates the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to fulfill God’s command to sacrifice his son Ismail (as in “the Binding of Isaac” in the Jewish tradition, God intervenes to replace the child with a ram). Ben Triki’s qasida itself deals with issues of longing for home and family.

Gharamophone · Saoud l’Oranais – El Idd El Kebir [Sides 1-2] (Pathé, c. 1930)

Notes
Label: Pathé
Title: El Idd El Kebir (العيد الكبير)
Artist: Saoud l’Oranais
Issue Number: X 55225
Matrix Number: 99583
Date of Pressing: c. 1930-31

The Moroccan Jewish musician Isaac Loeb[1] recorded no more than a handful of records and perhaps only the soul-nourishing one featured here: “Belouajeb Nefrah” (بالواجب نفرح, We must rejoice), a duet with Slomo Souiri––complete with hand-clapping. Even if his recording output was scant, Loeb, a disciple of Rabbi David Bouzaglo, was certainly revered. This was as true in Casablanca, where this disc was made for the Olympia label sometime in the 1950s, as it was in Montreal, where he settled in the mid- to late-1960s and where he served as an important member of Maghen David.[2]

Gharamophone · Isaac Loeb & Slomo Souiri – Belouajeb Nefrah [Sides 1-2] (Olympia, c. 1950s)

Notes
Label: Olympia
Title: Belouajeb Nefrah (بالواجب نفرح)
Artist: Isaac Loeb and Slomo Souiri (Cheloumou Souiri)
Issue Number: 1021
Matrix Number: LSP 5353; 5354
Date of Pressing: c. 1950s

[1] As legend has it, three Loeb brothers, Ashkenazim originally from the Alsace region, settled in Morocco in the eighteenth century. The three were forced to settle in three different cities: Essaouira, Safi, and Azemmour.

[2] Maghen David was founded in 1968. It was one of the first Moroccan synagogues established in Montreal.

Month: July 2020

Saoud l’Oranais – El Idd El Kebir [Sides 1-2], Pathé, c. 1930-31

Isaac Loeb and Slomo Souiri – Belouajeb Nefrah – Olympia, c. 1950s