Thursday, June 21, 2018

Great resources: Taoufik Bestandji, maalouf, Constantine, (Cheikh) Raymond Leyris

If you are interested in 'Arab-Andalusian' music and particularly malouf, the variety played in Constantine (and Tunisia), and if you're interested in Cheikh Raymond Leyris, as well as those who've played a major role in keeping this tradition alive, please check out Taoufik Bestandji's website, it is a major resource. Bestandji comes from a musical family, and his grandfather, Cheikh Abdelkrim Bestandji, was one of Raymond Leyris' teachers. Bestandji is probably best known internationally for the recording of Raymond Leyris' music that he did with Enrico Macias in 2000, Hommage à Cheikh Raymond. (I wrote about Raymond and Enrico and the album in  “Against Hybridity: The Case of Enrico Macias/Gaston Ghrenassia,” published in Rebecca L. Stein and Ted Swedenburg, ed., Palestine, Israel, and the Politics of Popular Culture (2005). 

Bestandji is also an accomplished singer and oud player in his own right, so please check this out too.