UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Becoming Mediterranean: Greek Popular Music and Ethno-Class Politics in Israel, 1952-1982 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3mq0x9w4 Author Erez, Oded Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Becoming Mediterranean: Greek Popular Music and Ethno-Class Politics in Israel, 1952-1982 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Musicology by Oded Erez 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Becoming Mediterranean: Greek Popular Music and Ethno-Class Politics in Israel, 1952-1982 by Oded Erez Doctor of Philosophy in Musicology Universoty of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Tamara Judith-Marie Levitz, Chair This dissertation provides a history of the practice of Greek popular music in Israel from the early 1950s to the 1980s, demonstrating how it played a significant role in processes of ethnization. I argue that it was the ambiguous play between Greek music’s discursive value (its “image”) and the semiotic potential of its sound and music-adjacent practices, that allowed for its double-reception by Euro-Israeli elites and Working-class immigrants from Arab and Muslim countries (Mizrahim). This ambiguity positioned Greek music as a site for bypassing, negotiating, and subverting the dichotomy between Jew and Arab. As embodied in the 1960s by the biggest local star of Greek music––Aris San (1940- 1992) ––and by Greek international films such as Zorba the Greek, Greece and “Greekness” were often perceived as an unthreatening (i.e. neither Arab nor Muslim) Mediterranean culture. ii At the same time, much of the popular music practiced under the Greek sign betrayed the lingering influence of earlier Ottoman café music, which it shared with other forms of popular and traditional music from across the Middle East. As such, it successfully furnished sonic spaces catering to immigrants from Arab and Muslim countries and even to Palestinian-Arab audiences, and provided a model for the hybridization and modernization of Oriental musical practices and tastes. In the 1970s, Aris San’s departure opened the field for a vibrant industry of Greek music by and for working-class Mizrahim or Oriental Jews. At this point, Greek music exerted direct and indirect influence on the crystallization of a new local genre––musikah Mizrahit (Mizrahi music)––which both articulated and contributed to the consolidation of the category of the ethno- class category of “Mizrahim.” As opposed to previous scholarship on musikah Mizrahit, my focus on the appropriation of Greek music in in the formative deacade of its emergance allows us to see the emergance of musikah Mizrahit not as a bid for reshaping national culture, but as a form of vernacular cosmopolitanism. iii The dissertation of Oded Erez is approved. Nina Eidsheim Edwin Seroussi Timothy D. Taylor Tamara Judith-Marie Levitz, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2016 iv I dedicate this dissertation to my brother Amir Erez, my first and best teacher on how to properly love music. v Table of Contents List of Figures viii Acknowledgments x Vita xiii Introduction Keywords 1 Prologue 39 Becoming Greek: Jews, Rebetiko, and Nostalgia between Salonica and Tel Aviv Chapter 1 The Greek Wave: The Rise of Greek Music and the Mediterranean Heterotopia of Jaffa 75 Part I: The Emergence of a Greek Music Scene 82 Part II: The Impact of Greek Popular Music on Mainstream Hebrew Popular Song 112 Chapter 2 “Greek-washed”: Aris San and Greek Audiotopias in Israel in the Long 1960s 129 Part I: San as an Arbiter of Space: The Mediterranean Nightclub 132 Part II: The Arbiter of Sounds: Aris San’s Recording Career 142 Chapter 3 Bouzouki Fictions: Greek Popular Music in the Cinema of Greece and Israel 166 Part I: The Bouzouki and “Bouzouki Music” in Greek Cinema: From Marker of Ethnicity and Class to Marker of Greekness-at-Large. 168 Part II: Greek Music and the Making of Mizrahiyut in Israeli Cinema 195 vi Chapter 4 “Me and the Bouzouki in the Vineyards of Yemen”: Greek Music and the Making of Mizrahiyut in the 1970s 217 Part I: Mediterraneanism as a Strategy in the Top-Down Invention of a Mizrahi Identity 221 Part II: Greek Music and the Development of a Mizrahi music industry 232 Appendix: List of Interviewees 261 Bibliography 263 Selected Filmography and Videography 281 Selected Discography 282 vii List of Figures Figure P.1: Photo of Roza Eskenazi, Agapios Tomboulis (standing), and 55 Dimitrios Semsis, Athens, 1932, photographer unknown, reproduced in Gail Holst, Road to Rembetika (Limni, Greece: David Harvey, 2014 [1975]), 35 Figure P.2: Locations on a map of Tel Aviv-Yafo 63 Figure 1.1: Location of Café Arianna and Clock Tower Square on a 85 contemporary photo of Jaffa Figure 1.2a: Patrons at Arianna with Samuel Barzilay (raising left hand 89 in the back), date and photographer unknown, Moshe Talbi personal collection Figure 1.2b: Musicians and Patrons at Arianna, with Barzilay “asking 89 for some peace and quiet.” Photo by Martin Solomon, Davar, June 7, 1957 Figure 1.3: Daviko Pitchone (on the right) accompanying Lukas Dalaras 97 at Arianna. Date and photographer unknown, Daviko Pitchone personal collection Figure 1.4: Greek musicians at Café Piraeus. Haimiko Silvas is standing 100 in the middle; to his right (holding a bouzouki) is Tolis Harmas. Date and photographer unknown, Moshiko Silvas personal collection Figure 1.5: Trio Bel Kanto performing in Tel Aviv as part of the 103 radiobroadcasted show Bidur 61’. Date unknown; photo by Photo Maki (photography studio), 1962, Evangelos Metaxas personal collection Figure 1.6: ha-Parvarim on the cover of their EP Istemem Babajim 126 (1967) Figure 1.7: Yafa Yarkoni and Anthony Quinn on the cover of Yarkoni’s 126 promotional single viii Figure 2.1: Aris San (sitting on the right) at Café Arianna, with Harry 134 Saloussi (standing in front of the microphone) and Daviko Pitchone (Sitting on the left). Photo by Moshe Pridan, Government Press Office, August 8, 1958, National Photo Collection Figure 2.2: Aris and his Orchestra Performing at Independence Day 138 celebrations in Tel Aviv. Photo by Moshe Pridan, Government Press Office, May 5, 1965, National Photo Collection Figure 2.3: Aris San, The Dayans, and friends at Café Arianna. Date and 140 Photographer unknown Figure 3.1: Manolls Chiotis (center) in Lost Angels (1948) 173 Figure 3.2: Manolis Chiotis, Mikis Theodorakis, and Giorgos 188 Bithikotsis (left to right) working on Epitaphios, photo by Takis Pananidis, 1960 Figure 3.3 The Production team of Kazablan in action. Siting (right to 206 left): artistic director Yoram Kanyuk, director Yoel Zilberg, orchestrator Arthur Harris, and lyricist Haim Hefer. Standing: the composer Dov Seltzer; with his back to the camera: choreographer Crandel Dill, photo from the original playbill, reproduced on Dov Seltzer’s personal website Figure 3.4: Trifonas in Salomonico (1972) 213 Figure 4.1: Meir Reuveni selling Cassettes, photo by Adi Avihsai, 198?, 235 NRG.co.il, March 2, 2013 Figure 4.2: Daklon and Ben Mosh (Tzliley ha-Kerem) on the cover of 248 their debut LP Bezokhri Yamim Yamima (1975) Figure 4.3: Izakis (Itzik Osmos) on the cover of his LP Siko Pano 252 (1978) ix Acknowledgments First and foremost, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my advisor Tamara Levitz, for her unwavering support, and for her truly exceptional dedication and generosity in reading and discussing my work. I would also like to thank the members of my committee, Nina Eidsheim, Timothy D. Taylor and Edwin Seroussi, for sharing their knowledge, experience, and wisdom. I would further like to thank other faculty and staff in the Department of Musicology at UCLA for their support and advice, especially Robert Fink, Jerome Camal, and Barbara Van Nostrand. I would also like to acknowledge the indispensable training that I received at the ULCA Library’s Center for Oral History, directed by Teresa Barnett. I’m grateful to the institutions who support my studies and research. My first years of Graduate studies at UCLA were supported by a Herb Alpert School of Music Fellowship, and by the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center of Jewish Studies. My dissertation research was generously funded by the Israel Institute, and by a UCLA Dissertation Year Fellowship. I thank Mark Kligman, the Mickey Katz Chair of Jewish Music, for supporting my final months of writing. I would also like to thank Yanni Kotsonis and Zvi Ben-Dor Benite of the Department of History at New York University, and Ronald Zweig, director of the NYU Taub Center for Israel Studies, for providing me with the valuable opportunity to present and discuss my work at the Taub Center’s Graduate Workshop. During my years at UCLA, I have had the privilege of being part of a strong cohort of friends and colleagues, who have all been invaluable to my personal and intellectual growth: Mike D’Errico, Morgan Woolsey, Hyun Kyong Chang, Alex Grabarchuk, Roni Hirsch, Shir Alon, and Arnon Degani. I would especially like to thank my dear friends Tiffany Nyman and x Margot Garber, for being like a family to me during my years in Los Angeles and ever since. While conducting research in Israel, I benefited from the hospitality of two institutions which provided me with a workspace and with other infrastructure for academic work: The Jewish Music Research Institute at the Hebrew University, where I was a vising scholar, and the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, where I was a library fellow. In the collection of archival materials, I received excellent assistance and advice from personnel at the National Sound Archive, and especially from my dear friend and colleague Matan Wygoda.