Zaman Shawqi - Cassette from Afghanistan

Here another beautiful cassette of folk music from Afghanistan. 

In 2011 we had already posted another cassette by the artist.

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Hamidullah Charikari - Afghan Music - Cassette from Afghanistan

Cover of the original cassette.

Here another beautiful cassette by Hamidullah Charikari. This is the fourth one we post. Our friend KF made years ago a CD with nice covers out of the cassette. Many thanks to him.
At the beginning and at the end of the cassette the music is for about one or two minutes slightly distorted.

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Ismail and Hamidullah - Folk Music from Afghanistan - From an Afghani Cassette

Cover of the original cassette.

Here another very beautiful cassette from pre-Taliban times by the great Hamidullah Charikari together with his older brother Ismail. I'm not sure if they are really brothers or just come both from Chakri near Kabul. We posted in 2011 already two cassettes by Hamidullah, together with the great Bilton.

I still don't know if it is proper to name this music Logari Music. In 2013 we posted a cassette by Ustad Doray Logari, who is said to have brought Logari music to Kabul and was recorded a lot by the radio back then. This is the way, one says, how Logari music became popular over all of Afghanistan. He was called the father of Logari music. It is also said that Ustad Doray Logari was the main teacher of Bilton, the most famous singer of this tradition, though there exists also the information that his teacher was Salam Logari, the son of Ustad Doray Logari. But as they are both more or less of the same age, or Bilton is even older than Salam Logari, as I think, I doubt this. Bilton was raised and spend most of his life in the Logar Valley. The music of the two singers here is definitely of the same tradtion, though these two musicians are not from Logar. It could be that the music which Ustad Doray brought to Kabul had such an effect that a new, quite sophisticated Afghan folk music evolved out of it. There are many other singers widely known in Afghanistan who sing and play a similar music, like Zaman Shawqi, Haji Saifuddin (whose music is clearly named "Logari music") and younger ones like Faiz Karizi (born 1953). If anybody can help to clarify this subject, it would be very appreciated. What I found in the literature - I must confess that I have only very few books on Afghan music - doesn't really answer my questions. As so often, what is described in the books and what one can hear in recordings doesn't fit always together. 

Anyway, this is a very fine and very fascinating folk music tradition performed by excellent professional musicians and it was and still seems to be today very popular in Afghanistan and the Afghan community in the West. Though in Afghanistan and in the West traditional Afghan music seems to be completly neglected nowadays as far as available recordings are concerned. When I started to look for Afghan recordings (CDs and cassettes) in the Afghan shops in Germany, especially in Hamburg, there were still a lot of recordings of traditional music available. That was in the 1980s and early and mid 1990s. But already about 10 years later this music had vanished completely from the shelfs of the shops.

In the West never a CD was published by a Western label by any of these singers and musicians. I think this is one of the big missed chances. Now it is too late for well-known reasons. In a recording done in the West one could have insisted on leaving out the Harmonium, about which the Afghan music specialist John Baily already complained several times. Then one would have had a beautiful recording of good singing with an ensemble of Rabab, Tambur, Sarinda and Dhol. The interaction between the musicians is always fascinating.

Our friend KF made years ago a CD out of this cassette and created the covers. Many thanks to him.

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Ustad Doray Logari - Vol. 1 - Cassette from Afghanistan

Ostad Doray Logari is considered to be the father of Logari music. I guess that this means that he popularized this music in the middle of last century through his performances broadcast by Afghan radio and television. The famous Bilton, of whom we had posted earlier two cassettes (see here and here), is his best student. Logari music became through Ostad Doray Logari's performances very popular all over Afghanistan and is often considered the most typical Afghan music.

Logar (great mountain) is a province, mostly inhabited by Pashtuns and Tajiks, southeast of Kabul. 

Side 1 (30:17)

Side 2 (30:08)

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Sarur Logari - Vol. 1 - Cassette from Afghanistan

Beautiful Logari music. The singer Sarur Logari is accompanied 

on Rabab, Tanbur, Sarinda, Harmonium and Dhol.  

Side 1 (30:34)

Side 2 (30:29)

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Bilton & Hamidullah - Vol. 2 - Cassette from Afghanistan

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Bilton - & Hamidullah - Vol. 1 - Cassette from Afghanistan

Afghan singer and musician Biltoon dies in Kabul

By ZABIHULLAH MOOSAKHAIL - Mon Nov 09 2015, 3:11 pm

Renowned Afghan singer and musician Biltoon who recorded around 1,000 songs in Pashto and Dari languages during career died in capital Kabul on Monday.

Ismael Saadat an Afghan journalist with BBC and fan of Ustad Biltoon says “Bilton was ruling hearts, his demise will certainly leave a huge void in the hearts of his fans and the Afghan folk music.”

Throughout his decades-long career, Ustad Biltoon recorded several songs for Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA). He was 22-year-old when he recorded his first song “Dil Man Za Amayat Para Para-Ka me Wakhli Khabar Ay Nigara”, a Dari Pashto mixed song, at RTA.

Ustad Biltoon was a talented singer who had memorized more than 200 songs most of which belonged to renowned poet Bahai Jan. Ustad Biltoon mainly had two instructors Ghulam Jailani (see our previous post) and Salam Logari. From Jailani he learnt to play the Rubab and Tanbur. 

Born, according to his relatives,  in 1913 (this can't be true; according to other infos he was in his 90s when he passed away. So his birth date was probably around 1923) in Chakri area of Kabul province, Ustad Biltoon was still a child when his parents died. After the demise of his parents, Ustad Biltoon whose original name was Momen Khan moved to Charkh District of Logar province and stayed most of his life there.

from: https://www.khaama.com/afghan-singer-and-musician-bilton-dies-in-kabul-4095/

I still don't know if it is proper to name this music Logari Music. Definitely it is a very fine folk music tradition played by professional musicians and it was very popular in Afghanistan. Hamidullah Charikari comes from the the same tradtion and they often performed together.

In the West never a CD was published by these excellent singers and musicians, or any by one of them or similar musicians of the same tradtion. I think this a missed chance. Now it is too late for well-known reasons. In a recording done in the West one could have insisted on leaving out the Harmonium. Then one would have had a beautiful recording of good singing with an ensemble of Rabab, Tambur, Sarinda and Dhol. The interaction between the musicians is always fascinating.

Download