April
17, 2009 - Since I enjoy listening to jazz, I was quite excited to learn that
the Embassy's Public Affairs Section (PAS) had brought a U.S. jazz band, Alvin
Atkinson and the Sound Merchants, to Iraq.
The band was performing first in the north, in the Kurdish Region city
of Erbil, and then in the south, at the Ziggurat of Ur in Dhi Qar
Province. The band was finishing its
Iraq tour with an April 4 performance at the Al Rasheed Hotel, performing
together with the Dejlah Oriental Band, which would be playing traditional
Iraqi music.
I
was somewhat concerned that I might not get a seat on the transportation to the
concert, especially when I saw that we were just being provided a van, rather
than on of the small buses (coaster).that was used for shuttles. The person organizing transportation,
however, used good common sense to swap the van for the shuttle and we all got
on.
When
we got to the Al Rasheed, I was surprised to find that the concert would be
held in the hotel's back garden. I
nervously considered the possibility of a rocket or mortar landing on the
site. An explosion at the concert would
be a real coup for insurgent terrorists, since a fair number of diplomatic and
Iraqi government dignitaries were gathered.
While publicity about the concert had been low key and the event was by
invitation only, of course there was no way to keep a public event secret. I comforted myself that most indirect fire
(IDF) originated from the east, in Sadr City, and the Al Rasheed hotel provided
some cover in that direction. (I later
realized that this was nonsense.) In the
event, nothing happened except for a ten-minute power outage when the band kept
playing the saxophone and drums without the guitars. The sun was a trifle uncomfortable at the
beginning (since the concert started at 4:30), but the weather cooled down
nicely as the sun started to set.
The
audience had a sizable Iraqi component, both men and women and included some
bored teen-agers who clearly had been taken to the concert by their
parents. The Dejlah (which is the Arabic
name of the Tigris River) Oriental Band played first. I was annoyed that a party in the row ahead
continued with their rather loud conversation over the band's music, but I
otherwise enjoyed the performance. The
band comprised four musicians. One
played the rebab, a stringed instrument placed vertically on the thigh and
played with a bow. Another musician was
quite skilled with the qanun, a type of zither which is held flat and played by
plucking the strings. The third played
the oud, the Arabic precursor to the lute, and the last musician played the
tambour, or tambourine. They played five
pieces for the first half of the concert.
The
audience perked up, however, when Alvin Atkinson and the Sound Merchants took
the stage. They played five pieces, only
one of which included vocals, "Ain't Doris" in which the composer waxed
nostalgic about his grandma's cooking. I
thought one of the pieces had a rather muddy melody, but certainly the hit of
the concert was second on the list, the classic Duke Ellington number, "Take
the A Train." I really enjoyed the
finale, a joint performance by the two groups playing first "Baghdad" and then "Caravan." The best thing was the sense
of normality that the event provided. In
the end, having the concert in the open air really helped to make it more
special. I will add it to my memories of
other special open-air concerts, at Wolftrap arena and the Fourth of July
performance of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony at the Conner Prairie living
history museum in northern Indianapolis.
Two
evenings later, on April 6, I attended another PAS-arranged event, a slide show
of old Baghdad scenes presented by Iraqi historian Fawzi al-Saadawi. Al-Saadawi made the point that Iraq's
multi-ethnic character had contributed to make Iraqi culture special and
lamented the loss of Iraq's ethnic communities, including the Jewish, which had
been on the territory of Iraq continuously since the Babylonian captivity. He showed a photo of a famous Iraqi singer,
surrounded by five Jewish musicians. He
said Iraqi music was unique in the Middle East, which tended to be dominated by
an Egyptian style of music, since Iraqi music had benefited from the
contributions of the various ethnic communities and also had ancient roots in
the Sumerian culture. Al-Saadawi
underscored the importance of Iraqi children learning their history well so
that Iraq's traditions of tolerance would not be lost.