Filed under: Iraq
Ja’afar Hassan (also spelled Jafar Hassan) was born in the town of Khanaqin, which is in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
The majority of the information I was able to find about him, was from his website… Which is in Arabic:
He learned to play the oud (Google translator: “lute autonomous machine”) at a young age. He later studied violin, viola and voice at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad, where he later became a professor and head of the Department of Music. He has also played in neighboring Kuwait and Syria, as well as Yemen where he is a member of the Federation of Yemeni artists.
Ja’afar Hassan was brought to my attention when I received a copy of the Sublime Frequencies’ compilation ‘Choubi Choubi! Folk and Pop Sounds from Iraq’, which features three songs from his album “Let’s Sing Together”. His music sounded unlike anything else of what little I have been able to find from Iraq during that time period (all of which was recorded in France). It is quite unusal, especially if you consider that there is no oud, for which Ja’afar Hassan is known for playing…
There is almost no mention of this album on his website, except only briefly on the biography page (Google translator: “Cylinder issued to him in Berlin entitled ‘to enrich together’.”). Also on his website, there is a page of his press clippings, but there is a 11 year gap from 1966 and 1997.
Also, there is very little information on the record itself. There is no indication of a record lable, but there is a catalog number. On the front cover, there seems to be something covering the right top corner, where the record company logo may have been and was printed over.
The record was most likely pressed in East Berlin, given that Hassan was supposedly a mouthpiece for the Iraqi Socialist movement just a few years before Saddam Hussein came to power. Also, the design of the almost all red cover and the sequence of the catalog number is similar to records from that time period.
But to make matters more puzzling, the liner notes are in Arabic and English:
Ja’afar Hassan is a progressive Iraqi singer who uses songs as a means to express people’s joyness, victories and sadnesses… He sings for the telling masses, thus giving his songs a new spirit… That is what we call political songs. He is considered to be one of the first young Iraqi singers who devoted their songs to serve the mentioned themes
Which begs the question, who was the intended audience for this record? Was it released, or at least distributed, in Iraq? Or, perhaps was this release for Iraqis living outside of Iraq?
If you have any further information, please contact me.
Thanks to Mark Gergis for his help and information.
Catalog number 8 95 012. No other information.
Filed under: Iraq
Munir Bachir was born in Mosul, Iraq in 1930, into a long established family of musicians. His father thought him to play the oud at a very young age. He then spent six years studying at the Baghdad Institute of Music, directed by Sharif Muhiddin. Later, he completed a doctorate of musicology in Budapest.
He is most known for having created a completely different playing style of oud in Iraq, but also to that of other Arabian states. His style is composed of elements from Flamenco guitar playing, and also from the tradition of Western Classical music.
Although I have read that Munir Bachir passed in 1997, I have also seen that he released a new recording with the Iraqi Traditional Music Ensemble (which he founded in 1981) that was released by Le Chant Du Monde in 2005.
For some reason, this song is the only song on this album that actually has oud on it. Also, you can tell this record was an attempt to appeal to a different audience than traditional Iraqi music.
Catalog number 2C 054 – 11.804 on Pathé Marconi / EMI, released 1974.
