Om Kalsoum – Alf Leila Wa Leila (LP Vinyl)
Product Details
The night Umm Kulthum premiered "Alf Leila Wa Leila" at Cairo's Qasr El Nil theater, the Arab world stopped. Her monthly Thursday concerts were broadcast across the region, with governments reportedly scheduling cabinet meetings around them, and this recording captures the scale of what those evenings meant, a single piece stretching across an entire LP side, pulling classical Arabic maqam tradition into modern orchestration without losing a thread of its emotional weight.
Souma Records present a vinyl reissue of Om Kalsoum's Alf Leila Wa Leila, originally released in 1969. They call her "The Rose of the Nile", "The Queen of the Nile", "The Daughter of the Nile", or even "The 4th Pyramid of Egypt" since she's known as the greatest Egyptian singer of all times. Om Kalsoum's mythical life story of a poor peasant girl who grew up to become the face of Egypt is a 20th-century fairytale. Almost half a decade after her death the power of her music and singing is still moving the hearts of millions of people worldwide. At the end of her overwhelming career she was introduced to the young but brilliant composer Baligh Hamdy who wrote this 30-minute lasting monument for her in 1969. In the footsteps of Mohamed Abdel Wahab, the godfather of Egyptian modern music, Baligh Hamdy refreshed the classical Egyptian orchestra sound with the addition of stylish instruments like electric guitar (Omar Khorshid), organ (Hany Mehanna), accordion, and horns that were adapted to the eastern tonal system. The studio version of this immortal "Alf Leila We Leila" must undeniably be archived under the best recordings ever made in music history. A Radio Martiko product.
Tracklist
UPC: 5414165088646
Label: Souma Records
Release Date: 8.14.26
Format: LP Vinyl