This compilation takes us back to the coffee houses of today’s Middle East, with a selection of music that would be played in a variety of café environments that differ in geography, ambience or clientele. The Middle Eastern café can be the small establishment in Aleppo or Cairo in which kaffiyah-clad men are sitting on low stools, sipping coffee, throwing dice on a backgammon board, smoking a hookah and listening to a radio broadcast of a scratchy recording of the love-torn vocalizations of the great Egyptian diva Oum Kalthoum. Or it may be the trendy, smoky, urbanite Beirut café, in which, in the calmer periods of this war-torn country, one might find the young Yasmina singing a jazzy version of a song made famous by her great-grandmother, the singer-actress Asmahan. It may also be the harbour club-cafés of the port city of Oran, Algeria, where pianist Maurice El Médioni honed his musical chops on a mixed repertoire that ranged from Jewish liturgical music to Algerian rai, French pop, as well as jazz and Latin music that came to Oran with the American soldiers of the Allied forces during World War II. And it may even be the hookah-café of New York’s East Village, modelled after the ambience of the cafés of the Middle East. This compilation is, in a sense, a composite musical travelogue of the cafés of today’s Middle East and their hookah-lounge counterparts beyond.
Tracklist:01. Amal Murkus - Ya Oud (Palestine-Israel)
02. Amer Ammouri - Al Mashdal (Syria)
03. Salamat Meets Les Musiciens Du Nil - Kabaddin (Egypt-Nubia)
04. Habib Shehadeh Hanna Feat Reem Talhami - Kool Shee Helo (Palestine-Israel)
05. Ghada Shbeir - Ahwah Kamaran (Lebanon)
06. Hamdi Ahmed - El Dawhaa (Egypt)
07. Fatma Zidan - Ger Aach (Egypt-Saudi Arabia)
08. Mohammed Roshdi - Soukara (Egypt)
09. Louwi Tnnari - Baad Al Khisam (Syria)
10. Oum Kalthoum - Ayoha Al Raïeh El Moged (Egypt)
11. Mahmoud Fadl - Ana Wehabibi (Egypt-Nubia)
12. Maurice El Médioni - Ahla Ouassala (Algeria)
13. Latif El Idrissi - Ya Rayah (Algeria)
14. Marwan Mesho & Salatin El Tarab Orchestra - Kifak Inta (Syria)
15. Ghazi Abdel Baki (feat Yasmina Joumblat) - Ya Habibi (Lebanon)
16. Tony Hanna & The Yugoslavian Gipsy Brass Band - Lamma Bada (Lebanon)
Total time: 01:02:08
