Click the link to hear a "Husseini Taksim" played by Oudi Hrant
https://soundcloud.com/harry-kezelian/husseini-taksim-oudi-hrant
Taksim is a term for an improvised piece of music in the Near Eastern/Mediterranean tradition. The Eastern Armenians use the word "mugham" which when specified as an instrumental mugham, is basically the same thing as a taksim (there is also a vocal mugham). The Western Armenians whose tradition this blog is discussing use "taksim," as do the Greeks, Turks, Arabs and others (although spelled in various ways). I have also seen the word "Menanvak" which is a proper Armenian word meaning something like "solo piece of music." A taksim is something like a jazz solo, except in its classical form it is truly a "solo" with no meter, no chords, and no percussion backing it up. One person, playing one instrument, completely improvising a kind of melody.
The traditional genres of music, secular and religious, Christian and Muslim, in Greece and the Near/Middle East do not use scales in the western sense. Instead they use "modes" which to a layperson are basically scales, but in musicology there is a difference. In western music we also have modes, but we usually only use two: the major and the minor. Any scale called major, ie C major, D major, etc. is considered to be in the Major mode. In the near east, there are a ton of modes. The modes are called "makams"(various spellings) and have rules or guidelines attached to them. A traditional, classical taksim is an improvisation in a given mode, with "modulations" (transfers) to other modes, which follows the rules of the mode, and the guidelines of how to play a good taksim, but otherwise completely improvised by the musician, using no meter or rhythm (well some would argue there is a type of very long meter to it), and unaccompanied by any other instruments - as heard in the Oudi Hrant track attached to this post.
Blind musician Hrant Kenkulian (1901-1978), generally known as Oudi Hrant was a master of the oud (fretless lute) who was probably best known for his taksims. He was an Armenian born in Adapazar, a city close to Istanbul which had a large Armenian population before the Genocide of 1915. After WWI, Hrant's family settled in Istanbul. Hrant started out singing in the church choir, but soon moved on to the oud. He made his career in Istanbul, but he toured the US in 1950, and did a world tour in 1963 to Paris, Beirut, Greece, America, and Yerevan, Soviet Armenia. He was a teacher of many Armenian-American oudists including Richard Hagopian. He was the pride of the Armenian people, and many consider him to be the most soulful oudist ever to emerge from Turkey.
Although Hrant played oud taksims in the classical style he was also an innovator known for introducing upstrokes in oud playing, which in its traditional form had only used downstrokes, as well as many other new techniques.
Besides the "classical" taksim as heard in the Hrant clip, there are other types and times where improvisation is used in kef music. For example, short taksims are very very often used as an introduction to a piece, as seen in this video where Richard Hagopian does an intro taksim on oud before singing the popular Chakaji Zeybek: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux7D-iQPMvk
With introductory taksims, the soloist is often accompanied by the other musicians playing drones, trills, and drumrolls.
In addition to the introductory taksims, American Armenians usually take solos in the middle of their songs just like jazz or rock musicians, and these can be considered a type of taksim, called in Turkish "usullu taksim" (rhythmic taksim), but Armenian-American musicians generally refer to a solo in a song as a "ride," i.e. taking a solo is "taking a ride." Taking a ride is more improvisational than a rock solo, which is often rehearsed and prepared beforehand, but more restricted than a jazz solo, which in modern jazz basically goes all over the place while a "ride" will stay in the same key and basic scale or mode, even if the classical rules are ignored. Here's a video of America's greatest Armenian clarinetist, Hachig Kazarian, taking a ride: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUOlioWh_AA. As you can hear, the other instruments are keeping the rhythm for him to "take a ride" on although the video cuts off when they go back into the song. The rides are what makes kef music really a middle eastern equivalent to traditional jazz. Here's another ride, played by John Berberian, one of the best if not the best living Armenian oud player: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVfxFE8MnTg
In traditional Classical Turkish music, taking "rides" was frowned upon and was considered a "gypsy" practice, although the traditional unaccompanied taksim (such as Hrant's) was highly regarded.
In eastern Armenian music, there is the concept of mughams which are basically the same as taksims. To be fair, here's a clip of an Eastern Armenian "mugham" played on tar, which takes the place that the oud has in kef music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTSEZ_oXDUM
These improvisations are one of the main things separating Armenian-American kef music from other genres of Armenian music, such as pop, classical, Soviet-Armenian folk music as played by the State Dance Ensemble. But as we've seen above, improvisation isn't restricted to Western Armenians, Eastern Armenian folk music also has improvisation. But in any case, the solos are half the reason that "kefjis" (fans or players of Armenian-American kef music) are drawn to the music. Why? In their improvisations, the musicians have a chance to show off their virtousity, but also to put their heart and soul into the improvisation which expresses their emotions and moves the listeners. For example, on the album Kef Time Fresno, there is a 5 minute long clarinet Taksim by Hachig Kazarian. In the liner notes, it says: "His plaintiff [plaintive] Clarinet Taksim closes the album and all the torment and persecution of generations of Armenians, gone by, are reflected in this beautiful closing number." A taksim or ride can express that, or anything else. The emotions of the musicians expressed in their solos are truly the "soul" of kef music.
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