The Legend: the Arab World's Greatest Singer

The all-time legend: OUM KHALTOUM !!

Some of you may have noticed the name Oum Kalthoum, in one of its many possible transliterations from the Arabic, haunting the periphery of your musical awareness. Performers as diverse as Bob Dylan, Diamanda Galas, and Michael Doucet (of Beausoleil) have expressed admiration for her music. She is mentioned in the WIRE from time to time, but you aren't likely to find much more there beyond vague allusions to Oum Kalthoum, "the legendary Egyptian singer," accompanied by speculations that she smoked a lot of hashish. Maybe you have begun to nod your head when you see it, but nevertheless have little or no idea what her music sounds like.

Oum Kalthoum's recording career began in the 1920's and ended in the '70's. Not all of her authorized recordings are currently in print. Most of her work is known primarily through live recordings, and in fact only a small number of her songs appear to be readily available in studio versions, though a studio version was recorded and broadcast before her live debut of most songs, starting in the mid-1950's. Since Arabic singing is traditionally an improvisatory art in which the singer responds to the audience's reactions, including requests to repeat certain passages, the live recordings generally provide the most complete and satisfying realizations of her songs. In some cases, hearing the audience's responses is part of the enjoyment of listening to these recordings. Usually the audiences captured on these live recordings knew how to go wild without ruining the concert, so you don't typically get the Oum fan equivalent of some idiot on a live Psychic TV album repeatedly yelling out a request for "Zyklon B Zombies" just when Genesis P-Orridge finally seems to be reaching some actual Shamanic breakthrough and not just demonstrating his complete inability to sing or even recite, or the inevitable wasted fan who appears on Neil Young bootlegs, shouting for him to rock and roll when he is on his quiet acoustic trip. These audiences are more like a good jazz audience, which comments appreciatively after a vocalist renders a line especially expressively ("Yeah, Lady. . ."), waits until the punch-line to laugh, or applauds a particularly powerful instrumental solo. I will often write here of "the" live recording, as opposed to the studio recording, for a particular song. In the case of the songs discussed, I am only aware of one standard live recording per song, though I have seen other songs for which more than one authorized live recording is currently available. Most of the songs mentioned here are long enough to be released as separate CD's, or are combined with one or two other songs at most.

While many of her songs are sad, something which is obvious even without a glance at translations of the lyrics, one of the main goals of her performances was to bring her audience into a state of tarab, a state of musical ecstasy. Habib Hassan Touma explains: "The intensity of tarab depends primarily on the voice and performance style of the singer, as exemplified by Umm Kulthum. Her performances often only approximately followed the fixed rhythmic-temporal organization of the melody. She would strip some melodic passages of their strict rhythmic form in order to repeat, vary, and paraphrase individual sections in an improvisatory way or transform the musical material more dramatically within the framework of traditional modal principles. Her presentation thus hovered between that which she performed and that which she created herself. The musical contrast between the familiar and fixed on the one side and the new, freely structured though related on the other creates, in general, a tension whose up and down evokes tarab in the listener. The emphasis of this contrast represents the most striking stylistic element of Umm Kulthum's artistry."

The earliest work, from 1924 to some point in the 1930's, while worthy of attention, is not the work for which she is best known, and probably not the best entree into her career. Mohammed el-Qasabji, who also wrote for the singer Asmahan (Oum Kalthoum's most serious artistic competition until her untimely death in the 1940's under mysterious circumstances) is said to be the most important composer from this period. These early years have been documented in an eight-volume series put out by Club du Disque Arabe, in France. Curiously, Elvis Costello lists this set in his "500 albums essential to a happy life" ("Costello's 500," Vanity Fair, November 2000), but fails to mention any of her other recordings, the ones primarily responsible for her reputation. Does this mean his taste in Arabic music is particularly refined, since the work form this period is considered particularly difficult, or does it mean that he is not terribly familiar with Oum Kalthoum's opus? At any rate, for the curious, a more condensed, digitally remastered collection from the early years is now available from EMI Music Arabia.

Riad el-Sounbatti began writing for Oum Kalthoum in the 1930's. He wrote more of her songs than any other composer, and was able to reliably provide her with quality material from the time he began writing for her through the end of her career. In his "Salo Koos" (1938), Kalthoum's voice immediately takes off, reaching a sort of intensity that often does not come quite so early in her songs. Her voice is full-bodied and three-dimensional: drill-like, but in a way which is somehow pleasing. The song concludes with an introspective passage during which the percussion takes more of a back-seat than earlier in the song, while the remaining instruments draw the listener more deeply into the world the singer is creating. There are classic examples here of Kalthoum's characteristic (though not overused) sustaining of the phoneme "m," only to complete the phrase she is singing with particular force.

The 1940's was one of the strongest periods in Oum Kalthoum's career. Much of her work at this time was written by Zakariya Ahmed who composed for a traditional small ensemble, or takht. His compositions tend to be relatively simple, allowing ample space for improvisation by both Oum Kalthoum and her instrumentalists. One of the most breathtaking recordings from this period is "Ana Fe Entazarak." The beginning of this live recording is not particularly attention-grabbing (aside from the haunting melody), but by the middle it builds into an intense structured improvisation between the singer and her musicians. The musicians seem to drift apart only to lock back together with a jolt, which lends the music a sort of time-bending quality. The ensemble's playing is exceptionally crisp, especially the oudist's. As for the singing (Ya salam!), it is not easily described. Oum Kalthoum must have been at the height of her vocal prowess at this point in her career. But this is no mere display of virtuosity: this is singing that can push the listener over into a state of tarab. I have sometimes put this on as background music, only to find myself compelled to stop what I am doing and sit in front of the stereo listening with rapt attention. Another great recording from this period is "Habibi Yessaied" (also by Zakariya Ahmed). The sound is intimate; the pace is luxuriously slow, as is typical of her songs. The song is repetitive, but the variations conjured up by the singer are enthralling, and her voice is exquisite. The very catchy song "Ghanni li Shwayya Shwayya" was written by Ahmed for the film Sallama, in which the singer starred as the main character. There is a brief, but amusing, clip from that film in the Oum Kalthoum documentary A Voice Like Egypt, which features people romping across the country-side while that song is sung (other songs by Ahmed include: "Al Ahat," "Al Amal," and "Holm.").

El-Sounbatti was also writing for Kalthoum in the 1940's. "Ya Toul Azabi" (1946) slows down, grows introspective, then builds up momentum, periodically punctuated by the cries of an appreciative audience. This is another fine example of Kalthoum's ability to deliver the same line repeatedly, with artful variations. Noteworthy here is a certain breathiness in the delivery of some lines, something I had not heard elsewhere in her recordings when I first listened to this one. The recording quality is poor, giving the recording a dated sound; yet it is possible to pick out a surprising amount of detail in the ensemble work. "Ha Ablou Bokra" (1947), an unusually short and fast-paced song, nevertheless, demonstrates Kalthoum's abilities, her voice diving and soaring like a bird flying. (These two songs are packaged together with el-Sounbatti's "Faker Lamma Kont Ganbi" from 1939, an excellent song in its own right.) From around the same time "Oulida Elhouda" and "Nahj Elborda" are good songs, though they are not among her most accessible works. They were considered difficult songs at the time they were released, but nevertheless achieved popular success.

"Robaiyat el Khayam" (1949/1950), a somewhat bowdlerized Arabic translation of the Persian poem, with music composed by Riad el Sounbatti, is a good introduction to Kalthoum's music. It's structured in a way that is more easily discernible to non-Arab ears than many other songs by el-Sounbatti, but the inventiveness of Kalthoum's singing is still very much in the foreground. The instrumental beginning is immediately appealing, with a striking upward rising passage on the always otherworldly sounding kanun. I found something oddly familiar about it, which I still can't put my finger on.) This performance is strong from start to finish. Read more ›

Having been in Egypt 30 years ago and studied Arabic back then at uni, I bought this for a bit of nostalgia. She's a fantastic performer, but these days I have to admit to finding her a bit depressing.

I bought this for my father who's a big fan of Oum Kalsoom, he liked it.