Umm does not sing only Moroccan music, or necessarily North African music, but like others before her, such as Charaï or Mamya Sophia she takes great pleasure in singing jazz in her Moroccan dialect, and in all kinds of rhythms or tunes - from Brazil, the Caribbean, India or even the Sahara nearby - all that pass through her head.
Morocco is surprisingly modern in some ways, and finally this modernity is expressed in music. There was the "women's liberation movement" in the '70s, and with this disc Oum signs the consecration of the "liberation movement of the song in the Maghreb," a region remained less affected by new experiences mixing music, as did countries like Lebanon or Turkey for example.
Umm insolently borrowed her name from "the star of the East" that was Oum Kalthoum by not suspecting anything! She also humbly placed herself in the footsteps of her grandmothers, great-grandmothers and all women singing songs in the evening in villages in Morocco and elsewhere in the Sahara and the Maghreb, women that she honors in her work, not as forgotten treasures, but as living treasures.
Magnificently accompanied great artists such as saxophonist Alain Debiossat, guitarist Patrick Guyanese Mary Magdalene, Cuban bassist Damian Nueva Cortes, or Jean-Luc Fillon oboe. Oum, (the Moroccan public knows already two albums), makes here a big entry on the international music scene. Listen only "Taragalte" ... Information about her upcoming concerts on Facebook ...
Translated and adapted from a French article by Nadia Khoury-Dagher, published here.
Picture credits here.
OUM, «Soul of Morocco», MDC/Distrib. Harmonia Mundi
«Taragalte» : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=297klwcKKmI
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