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December 5th, 2008
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Music for a better world

El Gafla offers a blend of international styles
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By Darrell Jónsson
For The Prague Post
February 13th, 2008 issue

Photo by FRANCESCA REMORINI
When Chaya sings about the hardships of immigrants, it has a ring of authenticity.
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El Gafla

When: Thursday, Feb. 14, at 7:30
Where: Rock Café
Tickets: 170 Kč, available at the venue

The Valentine’s Day concert at Rock Café being billed as the French ConneXion/St.Valentine’s Oriental Party will have no shortage of Central and East European cosmopolitan vibrations. The night will feature the post-colonial Parisian sound of El Gafla and a crew of Prague-based klezmer champions known as Trombenik. While Trombenik is decidedly more on the klezmer side of the musical dial, El Gafla offers a Balkan-flavored sound as fresh as the new Euro-Arabian street, and as ancient as Egypt’s Roma caravans.
Now that klezmer has a global reach, the differences implied by political borders are simply limits that exist to be transcended, at least as far as El Gafla is concerned. As the band’s founder, Karim Chaya, tells The Prague Post, “Hopefully, musical humanity has no religion, no identity card and no frontiers that can stop it.”
Such perceptions get personal when Chaya sings lyrics like, “To run is my destiny, to escape the law, lost in the heart of the great Babylon.” Although the song is a cover of Manu Chao’s “Clandestino,” Chaya’s firsthand experience as a former illegal alien gives his vocals an authenticity that Chau’s original version can’t match.
Yet, as the songwriter for El Gafla, Chaya manages to keep such laments in check while admitting, “Up to now, I’ve mainly written about the situation in Algeria and the Maghreb —  how the populations are taken into hostage, the disenchantment, the corruption, abuses of power and terrorism. But I also wanted to talk about the situation of women in those countries, their bravery and strength, how they stood up against and during terrorism.
“But, when I look at the news, when I see how Arabic people are often stigmatized as dangerous, when I see my culture diminished, I feel hurt. And, of course, I suffered segregation and racism when I arrived in France, so it is something that I will probably sing about. But I prefer remembering all the people who, whatever their nationality or social background, helped me and welcomed me and became my friends.”
Listening to El Gafla’s 2006 CD PA/Ris-casbah (on France’s Demain la Veille label) it’s the joy of friendship, rather than the pathos of the trans-Mediterranean music, that first catches the ear. Still, beneath El Gafla’s sultry arrangements of saxophone, violin, guitar and Afro-Arab percussion, a universal yearning for a better world can be heard on many of Chaya’s songs.
Since 2003, El Gafla’s combination of optimism and thoughtful introspection has found no shortage of receptive ears on European dance floors. “In Italy, Germany, Romania, France and the Czech Republic, it seems people often find a bit of their own culture in our patchwork of music,” Chaya says.
It’s no wonder, as within El Gafla’s upbeat sonic spirals can be found the more universal threads of klezmer and Roma music, mixed with hints of jazzy desert blues. On top of all this is El Gafla’s overriding penchant for the urban Maghreb pop music known as chaabi, which came to prominence early in the 20th century in cities like Algiers and Oran in Chaya’s native Algeria.
These days, with freedom of expression being violently challenged in Algeria, Chaya’s generation finds a safer haven for these ongoing international musical trends in Europe. Speaking of the Menilmontant neighborhood in Paris, the place El Gafla now calls home, Chaya says, “It is a place where there are always people in the streets and the cafés, and you can find a lively blend of cultures. The neighborhood is a bit like our band, where the musicians are from different cultures — Algerian, African and European.”
Although the past and present realities reflected in klezmer and chaabi may not have always traveled happily, those who catch this Valentine’s Day event can expect both El Gafla and Trombenik to deliver what Chaya describes as “proud, engaged and festive musical energy.”

Darrell Jónsson can be reached at features@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (13/02/2008):

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