>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. >> Nancy Groce: Hello. I'm Nance Groce. I'm a folklorist at the American Folklife Center here at the Library of Congress and I'd like to welcome you to our latest presentation in an ongoing Benjamin A Botkin Lecture Series. The Botkin series allows us to highlight the work of leading scholars in the disciplines of folklore, ethnomusicology, oral history and cultural heritage while enhancing the collections here at the American Folklife Center. For this center and the Library, the Botkin lectures form an important facet of our acquisitions activities. Each lecture is videotaped and becomes part of the permanent collections here at this center. In addition, the lectures are later posted as webcast on the Library's website where they'll be available for viewing to internet patrons throughout the world. So if you haven't already done so, now would be an excellent time to shut off any electronic devices that you are carrying with you. Today, I'm delighted to welcome Samuel Torjman Thomas, a performer in ethnomusicologist who holds degrees from the Berkley College of Music in Jazz Composition and Performance, a Master's from CUNY/Brooklyn College and who recently finished a PhD in Ethnomusicology and the City University of New York. Samuel is currently teaching at CUNY's John Jay and Hunter Colleges and he's really a multifaceted person. He's a performer, he's a woodwind specialist and he plays sax, ney, clarinet, flute and I'm sure other things. You're a percussionist. You're a composer and also a vocalist. As an ethnomusicologist, his research focuses on North African musical traditions, Arab music, Jewish music, and also jazz, rock and American popular music. Thomas is a founder and leader of Asefa, I'm pronouncing it right, Asefa, a New York based ensemble devoted to contemporary approaches to composition, improvisation and fusion drawn from Sephardic, North African and jazz traditions. He's also the Executive Director of JATM, the Jewish Awareness Through Music, an applied ethnomusicology organization focused on cultural exchange through music. And I understand some of your ancestors came from Morocco, Sam, so as most of you here know Morocco has one of the world's most complex musical soundscapes. Moroccan music has always had a fascination for him and here at the Library of Congress at the American Folklife Center we also have-- are particularly proud to have some very important collections of Moroccan music including the fieldwork recordings of Paul Bowles and Henrietta Yurchenco. So, we get forms of an important facet of our collection here at the American Folklife Center. I just want to take a moment to thank the Library of Congress' Hebrew Language Table and especially Gail Shirazi for co-sponsoring today's Botkin lecture as well as acknowledging the cooperation and support of the Washington Jewish Music Festival, which is in the midst of its 17th Annual Jewish Music Festival. And I believe the performers you'll see here today will be performing this evening. I'd also like to welcome, I'm not sure he's here yet, Mr. Fouad Arif who is with, the Head of the Moroccan official news agency, Maghreb Arabe Press and also Charles Jahant, who will be coming, who will be honoring us with their presence. Today, Dr. Thomas will be speaking on the musical soundscapes of Morocco from Africa to America. Please join me in making him welcome. [ Applause ] >> Samuel Thomas: Thank you Nancy, thank you Gail and the Library. And welcome. Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen how are you? Good, excellent. So I'm intending with this lecture to give a bit of a whirlwind tour of Morocco in terms of its background and its foundations and especially in the idea of how the circulation of musical expression has gone beyond the borders of Morocco and especially here in America. My research, which we'll get to a little bit more as well, deals most specifically with the Moroccan Jewish community in America but beyond that of course with the Moroccan community in general -- both my research work and as a performer encapsulates much more. So we'll touch on that as well. And, of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention these really interesting-looking instruments up here and the need to share those with you at some point as well. And then if you like what you hear and there will be more tonight here in DC, which you can come and experience an entire concert, so with no further ado: "The Musical Soundscapes of Morocco from Africa to America." First of all, one of the most important points that I would make about Morocco and its history is the inherent diversity in the country itself. How many of you have been to Morocco? OK. So, you know, you know what I'm talking about already. But for everybody to be on the same page let us do a little bit of a background here that the inherent diversity of Morocco is certainly one of the most valuable elements of Moroccan society and perhaps one of the most promising elements for humanity in general, if I may wax a little bit polemical for a moment. But the diversity there in terms of ethnic diversity, there are several languages that are spoken in Morocco, the Amazigh dialect of the popularly known Berber community, which is the native North Africans; there's Arabic, of course, and that being a Maghrebi or North African dialect that Arabic: there's Hebrew; and, of course, there's French and there's Spanish. So there's quite a lot of linguistic diversity going on in Morocco itself. And, of course, with all of that linguistic diversity comes also a diversity in religion and even in racial background. So as I mentioned before already we have the North African Native community, but we have the Arabic community which is the Arab communities been there already for several, several centuries since the early expansion of Islam across North Africa to the West. And then the Jewish community dates back 2000 years, the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, well, destruction of the First Temple actually began the Jewish Diaspora as we know it, but by the Second Temple certainly Jews are traveling further afield and ending up in many different parts of the Roman world and Morocco itself was part of that constellation. So, that is really very deeply inherent. We also have the Sub-Saharan African community, the Gnaoua community in Morocco brought across the Saharan Arab slave trade and certainly infusing a large West African presence in the county. What we'll get to, we'll get to a little bit more in a moment. So, just a couple photos to kind of represent this idea. This is a Quran, picture of a Quran written in Morocco. This is a collection of Torah scrolls in the Aron or the cabinet of a Moroccan synagogue and they are uniquely Moroccan and that they are standing up in these kind of very ornate round encasings with scarves on them and things like that. And then we have here the Hamsa, which is a very prominent symbol throughout the Middle Eastern world. But, and if you notice, the writing on it is actually Amazigh, which is the Berber dialect. So, we have this kind of juxtaposition of this diversity just everywhere in Moroccan society. Certainly, we must also take into account that there's regional diversity in Morocco. Certainly there are villages and there are cities and there are coastal areas and inland areas. So, you know, that has an effect too on the culture of Morocco overall. And topographically, too, we have quite a diversity going on. We have several mountain ranges-- some of you have probably traveled through the Atlas perhaps even the Rift Mountains in the north. [ Inaudible Remark ] >>Samuel Thomas: Yup, and we have the valley areas and we have of course the edge of the Sahara Desert. All of these different zones juxtaposition in one relatively small land area. So, this is kind of at a fundamental core of Moroccan diversity, I would say. To move on, you can see over here the reason I've included this map is to talk a bit about Morocco as a conduit point between East and West, because Moroccan history-- and this is I point out to the population flows. Moroccan history being on the cusp of North Africa there, on the farthest western side, has seen people traveling through it as kind of a nexus point and I think that's very fundamental as well to Moroccan culture-- to the development of Moroccan culture over the centuries. The notion of Morocco as isolated from the Iberian Peninsula is relatively recent. Morocco would-- The flows between people across the Iberian Peninsula, I mean, across the Strait of Gibraltar into the Iberian Peninsula is very common in earlier centuries. In fact, if anybody is up on Andalus history, right, the founding of the Andalusian Caliphate in Cordoba was with the help of Berber mercenary armies, Amazigh armies from Morocco. In fact, Gibraltar is titled after the general who led these armies, Tariq ibn Ziyad, and that's why it's called Jabal Tariq the Mount of Tariq, Gibraltar. Furthermore, as we continue into later centuries we certainly have empires actually being expressed centered in Morocco and expressed across the Strait of Gibraltar, the Al Mourabitoun and the Al Muwahhidun are both centered in Morocco, but expressing their power northward. So, point being that this is kind of a nexus point and has been for a long time for a lot of diversity to travel through. And, of course, with that is going to come a diversity in cultural expressions. So to turn now to the diversity in my area of interest with-- in terms of musical expression would be the Moroccan musical cultures, right? So, what do I mean by Arab, Amazigh, Andalusi, Gnaoua musical cultures? So, included in this would be, well, with the Arab musical cultures would be the kinds of things developed in the classical style of music centered around Arabic composition both in terms of the poetry and in terms of the music itself; systems of music. So, this would be developing in Abbasid, Baghdad finding its way westward and be developing in Andalus and finding its way southward. To this very day the Arab classical music tradition in Morocco, al-Ala al-Andalusia, is markedly different from the "Arab classical styles" that are in Algeria and Tunisia further to the east. The Ottoman Empire stopped at the doorstep of Morocco. So, the patrimony of the Andalusian-Moroccan classical music sphere has been kept more intact in Morocco. So, this is expressed in the modes, the musical modes, in the rhythmic modes, certainly in the song texts and in the melodies themselves. So, that I would-- I classify there under the Arab styles. Amazigh styles would be the again the native communities that primarily centered outside the cities in the villages or in the smaller towns and there you have different instruments, different approaches to melody making, certainly different languages, different texts, and even some different-- entirely different performance contexts. And there is some overlap there which without getting too technical I don't think this lecture is to be super, super technical so I'm not going to get into the taqs and the dooms in terms of the rhythmic cycles, but you can see a lot of that happen. So, the Andalusi, as I remark before, this connection to Andalusian music and the patrimony of that and then the Gnaoua music as well which is this Sub-Saharan music that is been present in Morocco now for centuries. Anybody here had been to Jemaa el-Fnaa in Marrakech? Yes. So did you have a chance to dance with any Gnaoua musicians there? They usually like to get you involved, you know. Huh? [ Inaudible Remark ] >>Samuel Those: Yes you will. OK, good. You will. Excellent. And after this, you know, you'll be ready to jump right in, good. So, in terms of musical systems, and this where I will get a little bit, I guess, technical for us a bit, is the rhythm, melody and language elements. Rhythmically speaking, Moroccan music pretty much across the board does share these foundations and kind of a 12-ish beat rhythmic cycle and some breakup of this and we hear this in the Gnaoua music, we hear it in the Amazigh community, and in the Arab music cycles. How it is expressed in terms of degrees of sophistication or different variations and stuff like that depends on the music and the community. But the rhythm for the most part is quite driving, quite cyclical and quite-- what's the word I'm looking for here-- infectious I think, yeah. So, if you find yourself looking for a groove and finding yourself tapping along then that I think is just about right. So, definitely aim for that. In terms of melody-making, there are different modes for melody. So we have, you know, in the West, in Western classical styles we have modes typically based around-welcome-- and typically based around like a harmonic system. So, for instance, you know, the Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do. So we have this and then we have another mode built upon that but it's all harmonically driven, right? Whereas, in Moroccan music it's all melodically driven, so that the melody takes absolute precedence there really is no harmony per se to play chords behind it or something like that. It's really about knowing the melodies. Now the melodies do come out of certain modes like a Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do kind of thing, but you could have two modes that have the exact same notes but different notes are emphasized, right? So, you could emphasize Do-RE-Mi-Fa-So, that's one, or it could be Do-Re-Mi-FA-So-Fa-Mi-Re-Do. And that's a different setup. So how the notes are emphasized makes big difference in terms of the system, the systemizing of the melody. Then, in terms of melody-making the-- it's all melodically driven music so that the melodies can be repetitive and then changing to another melody quite making a stark contrast or the melodies can be more complex in the classical tradition. And the way that musicians are really trained are to really learn these melodies internally to the degree that you can begin to play around these melodies. And what happens out of that is very different from the Western context. So, I mean, I'm putting this in relief to the Western context but the Western classical style where the harmony is driving a lot of this and you have a harmonic motion or, you know, like the sonata form for instance where you have a change of pitch in fact at another point in the movement is all harmonically driven. In this music being that it's all melodically driven there are moments of harmony. So the question is, well, what are these moments of harmony and how are they determined, right? If they're not determined in advance, then how are they determined? They are determined in a heterophonic way. So, for those of you that may not be familiar with that term, heterophony is when you have a classroom of kids trying to sing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" together, OK? Or, if we all try to sing, I don't know, "Stars Spangled Banner" together, right now, I think we would experience some heterophony. And that just means that we end up-- we all know the melody but we end up sort of expressing it timewise a little different and we end up getting these variations that happen and so, you know, you move on to the next note at a different time than you do and out of that creates harmony of course. And that harmony then becomes like an emergent quality rather than a predetermined quality. So, listening to Moroccan music and understanding it that way I think is a very important key. So that is the melodic approach. Language systems. Well, there are certainly styles where the language is the higher level composition in terms of the poetry and the expression of ideas of religious significance such as, you know, texts taken directly from the Quran or in Hebrew the poets often would be incorporating segments from the Torah or from the Tanakh and weaving that together with other ideas. So, that's kind of like I would say a high register. Then you have a more colloquial style language expression that is typically in Arabic and then you have, of course, songs in Amazigh, as I mentioned before. You have songs that are even mixing. And one important category to point out would be the Judeo-Español songs that are a unique dialect in Morocco. So the Jews that were part of the Expulsion, the migration from the Expulsion of Spain in 1492, many of which, of course, settled in Morocco because of its proximity to Iberia, to Spain, were bringing a version of Spanish, right? And that version of Spanish would be mixed with Hebrew words and as it would get into Morocco it would be even mixed with Hebrew words and even sometimes Arabic words and you would have out of this then a unique dialect that would develop over centuries in contradistinction, let's say, from that which developed by the Sephardic Jews in Turkey, or in Amsterdam. So that is part of the language, too. And, well, I won't have time to play you all the stuff I'd love to play you today, but there are some really interesting pieces that combined, you know, this diversity within the music that you can really hear. The melodic stuff I'm talking about mixed with the language of Haketia which is the Judeo-Español dialect. So, in sum, what I'm getting to is that Morocco's diversity, its inherent diversity in its topography, in its ethnicity, in its languages, in its musical styles is forming a soundscape, OK, a Moroccan soundscape. So what do I mean by this? Well, you know, we certainly operate within a soundscape, right? We were walking around Washington, DC or New York City in my case and, you know, there are sounds, there are sounds going on there's a beat to the city kind of, you know? And I think that's an important part of our feelings as human beings. When we're in this particular soundscape it's part of constructing who we are, much like of course the language, I mean, this is an ethnomusicologist rendition here very much. So, if I'm, you know, tooling around Washington, DC-- well, let's go a little further south into Richmond or something, right? Obviously my dialect of English is going to be colored by that which I hear around me, and so much is the same case with music, which is around us and is coming into our ears and is becoming part of us. So, in this particular case, in the Moroccan setting we're talking about a soundscape that is extremely rich and diverse. And one in which there are clearly are no walls, but lots of moments of blending and crossover between communities. So, if we can take ourselves for a moment and imagine the unseen world, which of course is the world of sound, right, it's unseen, it's just around us. If we can take ourselves out of the seen world, which includes, you know, judging a book by its cover, knowing who's different from one another, knowing the political stuff, knowing all these kinds of distinctions and rather envision that there is this entire sphere of human experience that's happening without borders and without any sort of control over any ability to even control, right? Because you cannot box up what is in that soundscape. Then it becomes a field, if you will, of contact of shared humanity of intercultural relations that then forms something that's even greater and emergent once again from these different parts, right? So the sum being greater-- or the whole being greater than the sum of the parts kind of idea. So that Moroccan soundscape is sort of where I'm-- what I'm aiming at here and then that Moroccan soundscape as a reference point or as an inspiration for taking it into the global sphere. So let me share with you now a little bit of recordings from some of my favorites. First is Amina Alaoui. This is "Melhun," which is a style sung in Arabic that is including some classical elements but it's also very much a music of the lay people in the city and expressing a kind of intensity of diversity that one would expect in a cosmopolitan kind of center. [ Music ] [Background Music] The fact that you have a woman singing, right, and leading this is a very significant part of this. [ Music ] I'm just going to see if this might sound a little better. If you don't mind, bear with me a second. Let's see. [ Music ] Let me just put this. This composer, Salim Halali, band leader, is-- had a club in Casablanca for many years called Le Coq d'Or, "The Golden-- >> Audience member: Rooster. >> Samuel Thomas: -- Rooster". Thank you. And, so he's a Jewish leader but he sings almost exclusively in Arabic and this style would be the cha'abi style. OK. OK, this may-- oh, let's see. [ Music ] [Background Music] Sorry. [ Music ] And he's active in the 1950s and '60s primarily. [ Music ] He himself is of Amazigh background and that's significant because of Amazigh Jewish background. [ Music ] I was saying that he's actually of Amazigh Jewish background, which is often not thought about, but again it's another example of the intensity of this diversity in Morocco that Amazigh or the Berber community has Jews and Muslims. So, he's definitely representative of that. This is a bit of Gnaoua music. And now what we'll check out here is -- now we're going to start to see the projection of Moroccan musical culture into the global sphere. And this is certainly something that is aided by modern technology from recordings being circulated throughout the world, certainly the internet now makes, you know, makes me be able to visit a village in Morocco while sitting in my bedroom-- YouTube and listening to some music, which is quite cool. But that circulation technology certainly the advent of modern travel technology and communication technology in general is creating an entire-- another realm for experiencing Moroccan music as oppose to maybe taking one individual coming from another place and introducing something into another place, there's much more robust opportunity for sharing. And this, as I've already made the point, is inherent to Moroccan culture anyway this kind of cross-intercultural confluence going on in this nexus point, so it's quite natural: but let's take a listen to some Gnaoua music from Morocco. [ Music ] [Background Music] And now for Hassan Hakmoun, who is a performer in New York City, and you can hear the tabla, the Indian tabla mixed in here. [ Music ] Lots of reverb effects and things like that from electronic recording. [ Music ] [Background Music] This is some Amazigh music, traditional Amazigh music. This is Mohammed Rouicha in the Atlas Mountains, "Awa Awa Zin", playing a lotar, a string instrument with a skin resonator. [ Music ] And this is a Bendir drum, a frame drum with snares, very typical Moroccan drum, also relative of the Pandero, Bendir-- Pandero in Spain. [ Music ] Call-and-response elements there in this music quite a lot. Now this is a modern version, this is Cheb i Sabbah, a remixer, taking much of that same stuff and now projecting this into European context. [ Music ] Lots of electronic effects. [ Music ] So, there are some examples of this happening. I'm going to invite up some musicians now to join me and share with you something from the Arab-Andalusia tradition. The piece that we're going to listen to is, it's called a "Tushia" and it is a kind of a foundational piece that sets the mode of the music. Thank you for joining here in a bit. Sorry we have to take that away so we don't blind anybody, OK? So, yeah, ready? [ Music ] [ Applause ] So, I'll introduce them now: this is Eric Platz on the percussion, John Murchison on the bass, and Eylem Basaldi on the violin. [ Applause ] Let me have you move away because they're going to turn that on again. So the idea of the Moroccan Diaspora, certainly Diaspora is a concept we're all familiar with and coming from the Jewish experience, the notion of a spread from an individual-- from a particular homeland, having an orientation to that homeland and in the case of the Jews with the 2000-year-old Diaspora the notion of an exile or a schism causing this spread to occur. There has been a lot of discussion in Diaspora studies over the last couple decades of extending that term now in a more modern period with globalization and such transnationalism, what have you, and that still scholars of Diaspora studies agree that there is some connection over a large expense fostered, these connections fostered by cultural expressions and in this case music. So, the American context of Moroccan musical life certainly include a connection to this Moroccan Diaspora, which loosely would include France and Canada as two other particularly strong nodes of Moroccan life, and Israel, which has a large Moroccan population. So, the American context in New York and in LA and even here in the Washington DC area certainly contribute to this diasporic constellation, as I like to think of it. Now, my work is focused mostly on the Moroccan Jews in Brooklyn, well, around the world but, you know, when you're doing a PhD dissertation you have to pick a spot [laughs]. So I focused primarily here. And in this community, the community itself has roots from the 1950s. As you see in this picture here on the right, there were groups of young men brought from Morocco to study in Jewish seminaries in Brooklyn, a couple waves of young boys who later would become communal leaders in the Brooklyn Middle Eastern Sephardic Jewish community. So this is many-- this is them coming fresh off the boat here to Israel-- I'm sorry, to America. Here is a Moroccan synagogue in Brooklyn, kind of the flagship, I would say, Moroccan synagogue, the synagogue where the representative from the Moroccan consulate comes every Yom Kippur to receive a blessing for the king of Morocco from the Rabbi. And so the Rabbi invites him in and opens the arc with the Torah scrolls and gives a blessing to the king of Morocco from Brooklyn. So that notion-- yeah, of connection. And meanwhile I should point out, that while this picture really doesn't do a justice there is so much hand carving-- hand carved work all around the ceiling that was provided by the previous king, Hassan II, sending artisans, a team of artisans from Morocco to actually do this for the Moroccan Jewish community in Brooklyn. This is the Rabbi of the synagogue, Gad Bouskila, and he is also the prayer leader and does a lot of the chanting of the sacred text as well. Again, Jewish approaches in this particular case to reiterating that Moroccan soundscape idea, so let me just play you a bit. What I want to play you now is actually a recording that I made in the field in Morocco in Shifshawan which is a town in the north, which I had the pleasure of visiting. And I was woken up at, oh, maybe 4 o'clock in the morning, by the sound of this muezzin chanting. And the way Shifshawan is built, it's quite hilly and there's, you know, some differences there and so right out the backside of my first floor window of the Riyadh that I was staying in was the minaret speaker from the mosque, so. But, you know, it really brought, it really drove home this idea of the soundscapes, right? And I was thinking to myself and certainly in my professional work as a musician I'm thinking about this idea of the soundscapes of Morocco and generating some connection to that, even in a new way by new composition and such like that. So, we're going to hear now this soundscape in action, OK, just imagine its 4 o'clock in the morning, all right? And then we'll follow that up with hearing some sacred text cantillation in Hebrew. And I want you to just notice the similarities, the musical modes, the-- just the way things are expressed and that can drive home some of this notion of that soundscape is just-- it's something that belongs to everybody. [ Music ] And you can hear in the distance another one happening as well. [ Music ] And this is in Hebrew. [ Music ] So then we have the Arabic and the Hebrew. This cantillation bit that I played you is actually a rendition of different markings of cantillations, you know, of the Torah, so it wasn't actually verses from the Torah per se, but that would be exactly how it would sound than as applied to the Torah text. So, another way of constructing a Jewish iteration of this Moroccan soundscape and keeping it alive in this Diaspora is through these contrafacta techniques which is very popular in the Jewish community: one is Trakib and the other is non-Trakib. Tarkib is a practice where the actual Arabic is reinvented in the Hebrew and there's an attempt by the poet to match the phonetics of the Arabic and the syllables a well. So for instance, there's a famous [foreign language] text called [foreign language]. All right, [foreign language], in Hebrew becomes [foreign language]. So, that is very, very similar. That's Tarkib. Non-Tarkib is I will just take the actual melody and simply graph the Hebrew text on it. This is definitely common way of bringing in the Moroccan sound into the prayer services in a Moroccan synagogue by the cantor literally taking something that would be common and well known and just applying whatever liturgical text at that particular moment. So, what I'd like to-- I'm going to invite the musicians back up,-- -- play for you here just a moment this "El Adon" and "Qum Tara," "El Adon" being the Hebrew; "Qum Tara" being the Arabic. [ Music ] [Background Music] This is a cantor. This is a field recording of mine as well. [ Music ] [ Music ] [ Applause ] I'll play just a couple more bits of this kind of idea, and let you open that cap up there for me. So, here again is my cantor friend whose name is Hiram Dehan [assumed spelling]. [ Music ] Now the Arabic, with an ensemble. [ Music ] So, we're hearing it there I'm going to play you a little bit more. This is an Arabic rendition of a piece called "Ana Maly Fiash" which is performed by one of the ensembles I lead which is ensemble performing tonight which is the New York Andalus ensemble and this is "Ana Maly Fiash," which is a Arabic text drawing text from the Quran. [ Music ] [Background Music] That's her. [ Music ] And now we'll hear the same melody, slower, but used for the liturgical. [ Music ] [Background Music] And in this case it's important to recognize that the soundscape is actually reiterated here in a cappella version in the synagogue. [ Music ] So, these are examples of these-- oops, let me just move on. This is from-- I have a few more minutes, yeah? [ Inaudible Remark ] OK, OK good. Let me-- I'm getting to the wrap up here. So this is a recording, a field recording, as well, of a piece of music called "Ashira Na." and this is going to-- is used to celebrate Rabbi, a Rabbi in Moroccan history named Yaakov Abuhatzeira. And we'll hear this is at a home in Brooklyn, sung a cappella and then we're going to perform a little bit of it. [ Music ] [ Applause ] And in sum, I would turn to the Hebrew Table here and say that, and I understand some of you must exit at 1 -- so I'm going to just let them leave for one second. In sum this is what I kind of I'm coming to: which is that with this Diaspora identity which is not uniquely only Jewish, but it's certainly in the Jewish context is another Jewish Diaspora, one that is not the Jewish Diaspora, but it's simply another. So I called this the "Layered Diaspora Consciousness" as being formulated by these different musical expressions and so I'll just read this: An additional Jewish ethnic identity becomes truly diasporic only when a robust consciousness of another homeland, in addition to ancient Israel, as well as a sense of belonging to another transnation in addition to the transnational Jewish community, are maintained through cultural expressions of the community. Moroccan Jews in America rely upon musical expressions in the synagogue life to construct dimensions of what I call a Layered Diaspora Consciousness. Connoting the complex juxtaposition of multiple Jewish diasporic ethnic identities informing, a Layered Diaspora Consciousness is a term used to describe how members of the American Moroccan Jewish community use forms of musical expression to reproduce, reinterpret, and transmit traits from three overlapping yet distinctive diasporic ethnic identities: Jewish, Shephardi (Spanish), and Maroka'i, Moroccan. I envision this Layered Diaspora Consciousness as an amalgamation of different diasporic ethnic identities and these layers should not be seen as hierarchical or nesting, but rather they are interacting rather than competing with one another, a co-mingling of Diaspora identities. As a dynamic cultural expression, music has a privileged role in affecting this Layered Diaspora Consciousness. Music is a dynamic medium that engages with the past and present simultaneously, and is used to convey communal narrative histories and negotiate communal boundaries and cultural influences. Musical expression has a specialized role in the life of the Moroccan American Jewish community. It is the preferred medium for performing liturgical rites, recitation of sacred texts, and para-liturgies used in the home and the synagogue, as well as a fundamental element in celebratory events. And with that I say thank you. [ Applause ] And I think I have some time for a few questions. I do have time for a few questions if anybody has. Or, remarks. Yes? >>Female audience member: I was wondering if you are applying all these things in the Christian community, in the Church? Are there similar kinds or differences in Moroccan music, to the extent that the Church was a factor? >> Samuel Thomas: The-- Are you referring to Christian communities in Morocco? >> Female audience member: Yeah, yeah. Morocco. >> Samuel Thomas: Well, the Christian community is very, very small. So, primarily isolated to some of the Spanish provinces but, you know, again, that soundscapes idea is absolutely-- we could use the Coptic community in Egypt as another example or the Christian communities of Iraq and the idea of incorporating those sounds. It's part of the sound sphere for sure. Yeah. Yes Sir? >> Male audience member: The Spanish or Iberian context you mentioned: did that include Portugal as well or strictly Spanish? >>Samuel Thomas: Oh I would, I would include Portugal as well, for sure, especially in terms of the historically when we're speaking about Andalus or Andalusia then we are talking about the whole Southern breadth of the Iberian Peninsula. Yes ma'am? >> Female audience member: How if that all has the French language be integrated in more traditional religious business in Morocco? >> Samuel Thomas: Well, not so much the-- well the language, French, is definitely a preferred language within the Jewish community and I would say that the-- certainly some songs that have been composed in French, songs by such composers like Enrico Macias, who is Algerian, but he is borrowing nevertheless-- even Salim Halali wrote a couple songs in French but they are still borrowing and they're really putting the French into a Moroccan musical context. And so then when the language is changed to Hebrew it's really sounds like a Moroccan musical song as oppose to a French song and certainly French languages used in liturgy, so... >> Female audience member: What would you say is the prognosis of continuing, you know, the American Moroccan Jewish musical tradition? I mean, so I grew up around here, I learned some of the [inaudible] Congregation, there are fewer and fewer young people going and, you know, learning Sephardic songs. Most Jewish schools in American follow an Ashkenazi a tradition. What have you seen in your studies of, you know, longevity of this traditions? >> Samuel Thomas: Well, that's a great question and it's a question that certainly brings to light a challenge. You know the American Jewish context is often associated as one of bagels and lox and that is not the whole story of the American Jewish community. Certainly the American Jewish community and its foundations is Sephardic. And in fact, you know, George Washington, his understanding of Jewish life would not have included bagels and lox at all. He would have certainly understood it from the Sephardic perspective. I do think that in this-- the Moroccan Diaspora kind of idea where there is such flows between Morocco and Diaspora communities, there are a lot of French Moroccans Jews going back-and-forth to Morocco. There are certainly some folks recently went from here and there are people going back-and-forth and that-- and the fact that there are Moroccans-- not just Jewish-- living within communities and engaging with Jews here. I think the prognosis is that the resources are there and the-- like I said before, the ability to travel and for communication technologies and stuff are there. What isn't there enough yet and -- is a consciousness that needs to be developed. I think, you know, some of that has to do with impulses towards dissimilation when immigrating, certainly second generation ideas. And so I think that's where a lot of the work needs to happen. And if you do not just to say, like, "let's learn some Sephardic songs," but more importantly to learn what is really inherent in Moroccan culture; that informs Moroccan identity outside of Morocco; and also inherent in the relationship between Morocco and America. One that I think is special and it's formed from early on. Yes sir? >> Male audience member: To the extent that you know, is there any part of musical evolution that end up in the United States from people who were enslaved African or Black people, whatever : enslaved [by] Barbary pirates, et cetera, because in the 17th century -has anyone read anything about that? >> Samuel Thomas: If you mean from Morocco itself, you know, there is not much of a slave trade from Morocco into the Western world, you know, it's all really happening in Sub-Saharan-- West Africa and southward. >> What I mean, I was Williamsburg and they had a whole tradition-they talked about Moroccan Muslim slaves ending up in Virginia so I don't-- >> Samuel Thomas: Yeah, I mean that certainly-- and not that... to answer your question, no I don't know if any research has been focused on that yet. Yeah. >> Nancy Groce: Can you do one more question? >> Samuel Thomas: One more? Sir Charles? >> Sir Charles Jahant: You have in front of you a beautiful lady in green, who can sing every song in every tone you can imagine. She happened to be my cousin. >> Samuel Thomas: OK [laughs]. Excellent. So is there a question there? Just a statement of fact, OK, so let me take one last question. Yes sir? >> Male audience member: When the Jewish people begin-- the younger Jewish people began to arrive roughly in the 1950s-- what language did they speak to each other? And-- I guess two parts to this question -- have they maintained that language? And what has happened to the Moroccans who moved to Israel? Have they maintained the languages that they were speaking to each other in Morocco? >> Samuel Thomas: And I want to expand the notion of language to include musical expression. Language is just, you know, one version of cultural expression. And first of all, the flows of Moroccan immigrants to America have continued over decades. This particular beginning or inception of the community in Brooklyn was a specifically isolated kind of event in context, but in the '70s-- '60s and '70s there are more folks coming to America. Now, the community at least in America is really includes a lot of Moroccans directly from Morocco; Moroccans from Israel; and Moroccans from France, so they're kind of intermingling. So in terms of languages, well, if you ever visit a Moroccan synagogue on a Saturday morning, you could hear a French coming in this ear, and Arabic maybe in this ear and Hebrew in this ear and English in this ear, you know, you don't have enough ears to listen to all the languages that are spinning about. So, I do think in terms of keeping language or keeping musical traditions alive, the different kinds of expressions are happening within the community, which of course, is centered around the synagogue life and therefore the liturgy reiterate so much of this and the other kind of para-liturgical traditions, whether it'd be songs at a wedding even or a circumcision ceremony or Haylula celebration are these kinds of areas allow for this to be continued and sort of encoded over generations. Yeah. >> Nancy Groce: Thank you. I want to thank Dr. Thomas and the musicians for coming. [ Applause ] >> Samuel Thomas: Thank you. Thank you, Nancy. >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.