Lebanese oud player and pro-Palestinian singer Marcel Khalife on tour again

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Lebanese oud player Marcel khalife I believe was just up in NY and is playing at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC for free tonight Monday January 12th, has anyone see him lately?

― Steve Kiviat (Steve K), Monday, 12 January 2004 14:53 (twenty-two years ago)

He has a new cd called Caress out as well. I read a Banning Eyre written piece where Khalife sneared at rai music as being Westernized fast food but I see that since his sons like jazz and play with him in his group, he incorporates that more uh, acceptable, western sound.

― Steve Kiviat (Steve K), Monday, 12 January 2004 14:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Caress is mostly very good. I have talked about it on a couple other threads. I would like to have gone to that NY performance but it didn't really fit in with my schedule.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Monday, 12 January 2004 15:10 (twenty-two years ago)

See: Arabic music (not elsewhere classified)

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Monday, 12 January 2004 15:10 (twenty-two years ago)

marcelkhalife.com only lists the Saturday night NY show and tonight's 6 p.m. DC show. If you hurry you can make it down to DC(assuming you can get off work, drive or take a train and get back and want to spend that money!). His Kennedy Center show is part of their free Millenium stage shows at 6 p.m. which are usually limited to one hour in length.

I saw your mentions of him on the other threads. I'll let you know how the DC show is. There was a conference in NY over this past weekend of world music concert promoters and how to get more artists booked in more US cities. Khalife's NY show coincided with that event.

― Steve Kiviat (Steve K), Monday, 12 January 2004 16:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I won't be there.

Incidentally, I can think of at least one earlier time when Khalife seemed to be borrowing from jazz: there is some very jazzy electric guitar on the last song on Happiness. I think it sounds pretty good.

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 12 January 2004 17:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't want to give the impression that I'm a huge fan of his work in general. I like his song-oriented material from the 80's. (Even that can be uneven, but there are moments of brilliance.) I haven't liked most of his instrumental pieces, or even most of his more recent songs.

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 12 January 2004 17:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I think you would have been pleasantly surprised by the show. Khalife had Rami Khalife on piano(his other percussionist son was back in school in Paris) and Peter Herbert on acoustic bass. They did 2 instrumentals and 2 numbers with some vocals in around 50 minutes. Little European classical music, more Lebanese sounds with a touch of jazz. I like Khalife's melancholy Arabic vocals and the mostly Arabic-speaking audience did a non-corny Arabic sing-along of some of the lilting verses of the concluding "Rita."

― Steve Kiviat (Steve K), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 06:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm not surprised, since I like this current project. I would have missed Bachar on vibes and percussion though.

I'm actually kind of excited that Khalife's two sons are spending time in Paris. I'm thinking that it's almost inevitable that some of these younger Arab expatriates in France are going to come up with something new that I will like. (I realize that there probably already is something new.) Maybe they'll hook up with Souad Massi; I mean musically, of course.

When I saw Khalife in Brooklyn, the audience sang along with at least one song, and I found it genuinely moving, though I didn't know exactly what it was about.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 15:39 (twenty-two years ago)

A Lebanese guy sitting next to me translated some of it for me. Khalife and his family have moved to Paris. Marcel spends alot of time traveling throughout the world and back in Lebanon.

― Steve Kiviat (Steve K), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 19:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh yeah one more thing. I was e-mailed the below...

Special In-Store Event at Stern's Music, NYC
featuring
Esteemed Lebanese Composer and Oud Virtuoso
MARCEL KHALIFe‰

Pre-Release Listening Party & Signing to Celebrate Two New Releases:
CARESS (CD) and VOYAGEUR (DVD)

Thursday, January 15, 2004 at 6:30 pm
Free Admission
(please come early, as space is limited)

Stern's Music
71 Warren Street, NYC 10007 (just west of W. B'way)
212.964.5455 * www.sternsmusic.com

* * * * * * * *
MARCEL KHALIFE - "CARESS" [Nagam Records / NR1015CD]

― Steve Kiviat (Steve K), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 19:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Plug time-- my review of Khalife's DC show is in today's(Wednesday's) Washington Post Style Section(Music page c 3)at www.washingtonpost.com

― Steve Kiviat (Steve K), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 12:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Incidentally, I tried finding your review online, but didn't succeed. I don't want you to think I ignored it. If you can find it and supply a url for the review itself, that would be good. (Did you see it online? Maybe it was online in print?)

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Thursday, 15 January 2004 05:01 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14582-2004Jan13.html

― Steve Kiviat (Steve K), Thursday, 15 January 2004 05:11 (twenty-two years ago)

It's good that you got in the background about the variety of work he's done. It's not easy to wrap that up. He's almost a pop star, in a sense, but that would be a very misleading description.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Thursday, 15 January 2004 05:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I loaned the new CD to a co-worker and she said it sounded like jazz lite mixed with Lebanese lite. Yes, it is a little on the light side, although I don't see anything "Lebanese lite" about the Arabic elements in it. There are passages of solo oud playing which are no more light than anything typically played along those lines. I kind of hate loaning stuff to people who mostly like and listen to classical music.

(Someone else I loaned it to at work liked it a lot anyway.)

― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 28 January 2004 16:10 (twenty-two years ago)

seven months pass...

At the moment I am still very taken with the first four cuts on this, and how they flow together, and the surprisingly free jazz like interlude of track 2. Very nice stuff.

― Rockist_Scientist (rockist_scientist), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 02:50 (twenty-one years ago)

four years pass...

He's gonna be back in DC at the Kennedy Center again, but this time playing with an orchestra (as part of the Arabesque festival). Should be good.

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 11 February 2009 03:54 (seventeen years ago)

You are a very systematic thread reviver!

― _Rockist__Scientist_, Wednesday, 11 February 2009 23:43 (seventeen years ago)

My attempt to see if I could get your attention and hopefully others as well.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 12 February 2009 05:45 (seventeen years ago)

two years pass...

This comes after a major Formula One race was canceled and a renowned Lebanese composer and oud player, Marcel Khalife, pulled out of the annual Bahrain Spring of Culture series, most of which was canceled as the protests and killings continued into March.

From a Washington Post article

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 11 May 2011 12:57 (fifteen years ago)

eleven months pass...

Marcel Khalife has a nice double cd out now. I like the songs with vocals best. The European classical sounding numbers and the ones with a tad of jazz influences are not bad, but I like the Lebanese/middle-eastern ones best. Public radio network PRI had a recnet interview with him that might be online. I was away and missed his latest W. DC appearance Saturday at the Warner Theatre.

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 1 May 2012 16:00 (fourteen years ago)

Just realized that only two of us have ever posted on this thread. Oh well.

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 1 May 2012 18:22 (fourteen years ago)

No Washington Post review of this year's DC gig. I do not think they have had a review of him, since well, I did one for them.

Khalife is a big deal in some circles.

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 2 May 2012 20:36 (fourteen years ago)

six months pass...

Almost unbelievably, in 2010 he put out a new version of Caress with the two weakest, most problematic tracks removed. How often does that happen?

http://www.amazon.com/Caress-Khalife-Marcel/dp/B001MRMT5O/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1351965518&sr=1-2&keywords=Marcel+Khalife+Caress

― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 3 November 2012 18:01 (thirteen years ago)

It's on Spotify along with my favorite of his albums, At the Border.

― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 3 November 2012 18:07 (thirteen years ago)

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