Bluemerle

As penance for wondering why Swarthy musicians from Syria would be permitted to swarm airliner aisles, swarm the bathrooms, lean against exits and sit near cockpits without being inconvenienced by extra pre-flight scrutiny; and moreover my questioning of the need for imported musicians from Syria, I decided to educate myself a little about the talents and trade, and market for same.

All of these are more than I supposed.

The party-band market is huge. And there are many ME bands, with Syrian/Palestinian/macedonian,etc. members who travel frequently in and out of the US.

It would be ironic if the musicians that inspired Annie Jacobsen's fear were here as a public relations effort.

Here is a sampling of Syrian musicians who reside or visit the USA:

Kinan Abou-afach, f'ng genius
His bio
"In recent years, Kinan has been exploring various aspects of Middle Eastern music and is currently composing original music that music is based on maqam and improvisational ideas that reflect the Middle-Eastern philosophy and musical aesthetics." He is classically trained in Western music, his original composition are east/west Fusion.

Many personal use Mp3's of his available here.

I liked this brooding, ominous piece; it seems like a good bumper for a story on Syrian musicians scaring people
Taqseem (3:04)

His father, Nazih Abou-afach, is , by the sons account, "a nationally recognized painter and poet. His books are translated into six languages and he is a renowned artist in Europe and the Arabic world." By my account, he has beautiful but somewhat plaintively fatalistic and morbid verse

Naeif Rafeh plays the Ney

a gallery of pictures of Naif amongst the ruins

"Today, Naeif maintains a busy schedule, performing in Chicago's lively Arabic nightclub scene, and playing Arabic classical music in the al Sham Ensemble, in the City of Chicago's "Miles of Music", Issa Boulos' al Sharq Ensemble and Walid al Hajali's Middle Eastern Ensemble at the University of Chicago among many others"

Ney Ney Nanette (my title)

Naif's discography features a Syrian band, Janan Sawa
-Janan Sawa music is a crazy fusion, Traditional Syrian music meets Bollywood meets disco meets Hatten är din -

A few of their songs in realaudio format:

Eqballee

Le Sarwenakh "He's a complicated man/But no one understands him but (lowly) woman/ Jabar Shaief!"

Impressive ululation on thisone. (Zaynokah/Moronlee)

Naeif also links to some other very prominent Syrian musicians.

Omar al Musfi, Syrian percussionist
On this page, you can select and listen to some examples of his drumming.

Abdullah Chhadeh qanun(or quanoon) player.

Abdullah Chhadeh is based in London, touring all over the world. He's almost pretty enough to be a US vice-president.

A recording of him performing, and a quicktime video of an improvisation on "rast scale" - impressive.

Al Siadi
Website of Syrian musician Mohamed A Al Siadi. Biography, history of oud, maqam and oriental music. M. Abdulrahim Alsiadi

The ultimate Syrian Band - The Syrian National Symphony; link article about their US debut, 1998


Update:

Power line has another Syrian band round up, with a pic and link to Kulna Sawa.

Charles Johnson at LGF
has posted that a reader has identified Kulna Sawa as THE band on the flight.
He has no corroboration. I suppose it's possible that it's the band, but it's only one band among many here. All their shining faces are on their website, so if this is mere rumor it will soom be disposed of.
Update: Rumor disposed of. Via Michelle Malkin. band manager Mel Lehman writes the band is currently in Syria and "not invovled in any way in the incident".




He also mentions The Iraqi Elvis singer Kazem al Sahi - who will have a 15 piece back-up band on his tour of the US consisting of musicians from various ME locales, including Syria.

Some new additions to the list:

OUd player Abdelader Kassab a member of the Andelus Ensemble. The Andelus Ensemble is made up of six Syrian musicians who perform classical Arabic music in a takht style format. They don't seem to have a website, but l did find some album listings.

I love this track of him playing the oud (realmedia) : Taksim Oud "Salwa"

Oud player> Amer Ammouri plays for the orchestra a renowned Syrian singer, Sabbah Fakhri, and has traveled over the world with the him.
His playing of this piece, Sultani (Jarka) is just brilliant.