Born in Algiers during the 1930s, Algerian «chaâbi» (a word meaning «popular» in arabic) results from appropriations of Andalusian music, Kabyle songs, but also jazz and french songs. From the very beginning of its story, chaâbi has also developed on French soil, but its practitioners and public have remained confined to the Algerian diaspora up to the 2010s. It is in this context, also marked by growing diplomatic tensions between France and Algeria, that I began learning chaâbi with a master of the mandole, Didine Kati. The AZAWAN quintet which we founded in 2019 brings together two Algerian musicians and three jazz musicians from France and Austria. The group had (and still has) to deal with two sets of questions linked to reciprocal appropriations between jazz and chaâbi. The first concerns musical practices: do outsiders necessarily need to acquire an emic knowledge of chaâbi for its appropriation to be considered legitimate? Who should judge this legitimacy, and according to which criteria? The second set of questions has to do with ethics: to what extent is a validation of these appropriations by insiders (including members of the Algerian community) necessary or desirable? And how does this need for validation influence the work and stylistic choices of AZAWAN? The autoethnographic approach to these questions enables us to reconsider the complexity of appropriation processes from an empirical and pragmatic perspective. It will draw on the archives of the AZAWAN group, and interviews with chaabi musicians and lovers.
MARTIN GUERPIN is Assistant Professor in Musicology at Paris-Saclay University, and a musician specializing in jazz and Algerian chaâbi. His research focuses on European jazz, and the relationship between music and identities, in the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries. His publications include (among others) a volume on Musical Life in French Casinos (Actes Sud, 2024), Music and Postwar Transitions (Berghahn Books, 2023), an anthology of francophone texts on jazz (Le Jazz dans la presse francophone, 1918-1929: une édition en ligne, OICRM, 2023). He is now preparing a book on Jazz et musique classique en France (1900-1939). Martin’s research has been awarded the SOCAN–Proctor Prize (Canada) and a Marie Curie Fellowship (European Union). He co-leads the “Music and Nation“ international research network (Paris-Saclay University, the University of Leeds, and Princeton University), which is currently investigating the role of the arts in the Americanisation of Europe. His research on appropriations and identities in music are now turning to the case of Algerian chaâbi and other music genres from North Africa. As a saxophonist, Martin was awarded the Jazz Magazine prize for Best Concert (2014) and a “Choc“ from Jazz Magazine/Jazzman for the album Spoonful (2017). Another album Zeitgeist (2023), was awarded the Prix de l’Académie du Jazz (2024). Along with Algerian mandolist Didine Kati, he co-founded Azawan, a quintet that brings together European jazz musicians and Kabyle chaâbi musicians (Azawan, 2022).
