DRIASSA A L'OLYMPIA
في الأولمبيا
Les Artistes Arabes Associés, 1975, 72600
R. Driassa (1934-2021) was a very famous singer and composer in Algeria. He was also a painter. He sang between 1953 and 1990. In 1953 he had the possibility to sing one of his own songs for a radio broadcast in Algiers. Then he began his career at the time of Algeria's independence. He sang diffenrent types of songs from patriotic ones to Bedouin and Sahraoui. Some of his compositions were national hits like ''El Goumri''.
Here he was in Paris at the Olympia a place which saw plenty of French stars but also foreigners like Driassa who sang for the important Algerian community in the Paris area at a time where some of the Algerian working for Renault or other big industrial plants lived in shanty towns in the suburbs of Paris. Obviously the public was exclusively Arabic speaking only since all Driassa's talking was in Arabic. It was the first time that immigrant people had the opportunity to listen to one of them in that venue.
All the songs were new ones all composed by him except for one. He was backed by a typical orchestra with five violins, a luth, a ney flute and the rhythmic section. But the sound was also enhanced by the use of a quarter-tone accordion; there is also a bouzouk, a double bass and a small choir.
Frequently singers like to link two songs together; here Driassa links songs on tracks Al and A2, A3 and A4, B1 and B2.
Text in French.
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Good morning Herve!! and thank you very much!! For me the orchestra wasn't so typical. I "recognised" great virtuosity ... from violin and accordion player for ex. Mokhtari Mohamed
ReplyDeleteHello Leonidas; good to hear from you. What I meant was that the orchestra was typical plus some ''new instruments'' for us maybe but already in use in the Middle East since the 50s. True the accordion makes the difference; it sounds like an organ at times
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