America's Other Orchestras: Arab American Ensemble Series Episode 11

posted on: Dec 14, 2016

Longing for Good Old Zaman in Southern California

BY: Sami Asmar/Contributing Writer

The first community ensemble in the US specializing in Arab music that operated in a sustained manner started in Los Angeles. In the mid 1990s, a handful of young people from the community showed up at the UCLA Near East Ensemble directed by Professor AJ Racy even though they were not students there and were welcomed as guests. The group, which included this writer, struck strong friendships as they each realized their newly found passion for classic Arab music and started playing at their social events. An inspiring Egyptian scientist friend enjoyed the music and suggested asking some of her friends who “always wanted to sing” to form a chorus to accompany the instrumentalists. The rest was history. The word got out and countless number of people started inquiring about joining. The group got organized, secured rehearsal space from a community center and called themselves the Kan Zaman Community Ensemble. After initial experimentation with other leaders, Mr. Wael Kakish was asked to step into the role of artistic director and this writer as the president of the board and manager.

Was it luck or the star alignment, or just a thirst for this genre at the right time and place, there is no clear explanation for the tremendous and meteoric success of the group. Quickly, professional musicians complemented the amateurs and the group kept growing and performed at sold out concerts for a few years. In the early days, the late Armenian singer and oud player Yarvand was the most popular feature as he imitated Farid al-Atrash in his voice and oud playing style to extremes, consistently prompting standing ovations. The leaders became stars in their community yet managed to stay out politics, religion, or sponsorships with agendas.

Kan Zaman, with a name intentionally selected to emphasize old traditional and folk music, thrived for many years, even as some people eventually left or moved away.  A few years ago, the longtime artistic director moved out of the US marking the formal end of the group.  By then it had become an institution with every amateur singer or musician in the state having spent at least six months with the group, some years, making friends, and staying up way too late at rehearsals, which were essentially weekly events open to friends.

By then the Arab music scene in Southern California has evolved and additional groups experimented in other genres. The academic ensembles were still going strong and MESTO was formed as a large and vibrant orchestra. But, it seems, the need for a community ensemble was still there and new musicians had immigrated to the area from Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. So a group organized themselves again to maintain the spirit of Kan Zaman and founded an ensemble called Layali Zaman.

Under the leadership of the talented violinist Adel Iskandar, Layali Zaman has had tremendous success with brilliant management and has been thriving with the community. The style has evolved with the times from the old Kan Zaman, which had musical purists. Layali Zaman features synthesizer keyboards and electric guitars with the traditional instruments. This actually emulates how a similar orchestra in Cairo would look like. We have grown up with al-Firqa al-Massiya (the Diamond Orchestra) on television accompanying the great singers of the time in Egypt as the great Abd al-Wahhab himself added these Western instruments to his more recent compositions.

Consistent with this orchestration, Layali Zaman features classic Egyptian songs from the seventies and eighties and has virtually abandoned the old muwashahat of Aleppo that has characterized their predecessor group.

The story of groups with the name Zaman in the Hollywood neighborhood is as much as about the community as it is about the music. What audiences rarely notice is the back-stage challenge of being a community ensemble. This is intended to be group of volunteers but, as with all volunteers, less come to learn and follow a leader and more come to impose ideas and argue for opinions, armed with the usual defense of wanting rights in return for spending their time. Money also corrupts as ultimately concert tickets bring income that needs to be managed. Is it our community that is notorious for disorganization or is artists in general? Neither, it turns out to be a universal behavior and an understandable one. Just ask any non-profit organization member to hear similar stories. This is where leadership is key to the success of any organization.

A more fundamental reason for the success of our community ensembles, however, is the joy of our music. Despite all the differences in the backgrounds of the participants, their opinions and their levels of their talent and contribution, in the middle of the most heated and loudest argument, the minute a singer starts a mawwal or a oud player starts a taqasim, everything stops, the mood changes, hugs and smiles take over, and sometimes tears, as the words of appreciation Allah and kaman kaman (more, more) are repeated and more people join in with an elevated spirit of our musical therapy.