In the mainstream of Israeli culture, Aris San had not yet been noticed.
Consumers of established culture watched theater productions at Habima Theatre or Cameri Theatre, recommended Hollywood movies, and listened to locally produced Hebrew songs, written in the Western style and sung by artists from Israeli military ensembles or their graduates. Songs about military life, songs about the country's atmosphere and landscapes, humor songs, patriotic songs, and even songs with a Yemenite or Moroccan rhythm. Greek music belonged to the margins, to the "ethnic" and folklore niche. Like Turkish music, like Persian or Kurdish. It received an upgrade following a Greek wave that swept the world and reached Israel.
In the early 1960s, the Greek trend spread throughout the Western world.
It began with the film "Never on Sunday," a Greek-American production. Its plot takes place in Greece and depicts the daily life of ordinary people. The film's star, Melina Mercouri, won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival, and she also sang the theme song: "Children of Piraeus," which won an Oscar. Millions worldwide watched the romantic film, and its music played on radio stations in Europe and America. In Israel, too, with its gaze fixed on the West, the film was a talked-about topic and attracted a high number of viewers who flocked to movie theaters across the country. Film critics in the press lauded the film, and the radio played its songs frequently.
The Israeli ear opened to the sounds of "exotic," "picturesque" Greece, and received more and more Greek doses.
Next came the singer Aliki, a Greek cultural hero, a gifted film actress and singer. Down-to-earth, cheerful, who often expressed her emotions through love songs composed for her by Manos Hadjidakis. Blonde Aliki arrived for a visit to Israel, a visit that was extensively covered in the press.
Then, in 1964, the film "Zorba the Greek" was released, starring Anthony Quinn. This film also dealt with Greek daily life and achieved great success, winning Oscar awards.
"Zorba the Greek" definitively stamped Greek music with cultural approval in Israel, and it moved from the sidelines to the mainstream.
Naomi Shemer wrote lyrics for a popular song by Manos Hadjidakis, and the "Gesher HaYarkon Trio" (Yarkon Bridge Trio) sang "Ayelet Ahavim" on its first record. On its second record, the trio sang "It's All Because of Love," also with a Greek melody...
And suddenly, it became fashionable to consume it, to sing and dance Sirtaki.
Gesher HaYarkon and the song "Ayelet Ahavim" by Hadjidakis To watch and listen click on the image or here
Zorba the Greek from the movie
To watch and listen click on the image or here
Aris San, who had been here much earlier, remained in his niche, waiting, before receiving public artistic recognition.
Consumers of established and esteemed culture, the connoisseurs of good cultural taste, didn't know how to contain him. He was different from everything familiar in Israel in those years. He was a foreigner (a non-Jew), and there was even a rumor that he was a spy, and his clubs served as a meeting place for foreign agents.
The sounds of his music threatened the artistic tranquility. What was considered elite culture. That which received extensive coverage in the written press and on the radio.
He belonged to "nightclub culture," which was considered inferior. Underground culture.
Aris San was easy to deal with, to ignore his existence, or to view him as a folk singer from the realm of folklore.
The problem of consumers of elite culture and its taste-makers was deeper: After decades of establishment, it faced competitors. Joe Amar, the new immigrant from Morocco, became an admired star, and masses consumed his Mizrahi music, and singers began to show a disturbing deviation towards "dirty" or "cheap" "rock and roll." They anxiously watched how teenagers and young people were drawn to new musical styles arriving from abroad, capturing the ears of listeners across the country – "light music," they called it. A kind of shallow entertainment. Songs that didn't have enough Bialik or Tchernichovsky. They didn't have Alterman or Moshe Vilensky. They didn't resemble the Russian melody that generations of Jewish pioneers in the Land of Israel yearned for.
And suddenly the Greek "gentile" charged at them, making adults dance unrestrainedly in ways more suited to nightclubs in Baghdad or Cairo, not for club-goers from "good families." He was even invited to sing and make the younger generation dance on Independence Day entertainment stages, pushing aside the Hora dances of Israeli Sabras.
And if all this wasn't enough, he became a favorite of senior IDF officers, led by the legendary Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan, who was seen at his performances. Celebrity guests who visited Israel came to experience an unconventional pleasure at his show.
Even Leonard Bernstein, a Jewish cultural elite hero, a symphony orchestra conductor who was a star in his country and composer of hundreds of songs for musicals and films, sang with the Greek "gentile" and played at his nightclub.
Such events were considered "spicy" by artistic taste-makers. A kind of elitist generosity. A descent from the heights of Olympus to the people. To the common folk.
Leonard Bernstein
The news in "HaOlam HaZeh" weekly's gossip column ׂ(in Hebrew)
Aris San
Aris San was not Zorba – the common, simple man from the Greek islands.
San was a charming young man, dressed in tailored suits, slender and well-groomed, with a neat pompadour. A singer of clubs. Of "nightlife" and its club-goers.
He lacked the Greek authenticity that was loved and appreciated in the corridors of the cultural establishment in Israel and worldwide. His guitar was electric – not a real bouzouki. The embellishments in his voice exceeded the boundaries of correct cultural taste. Art critics in the Hebrew press applauded Shoshana Damari, representing colorful folklore. They showered praise on Bracha Zefira, the "authentic," "rooted" local.
They granted sympathy for ethnic origin to singer Yona Atari, the Yemenite, and Yossi Banai, the Persian, who integrated into the marked and accepted paths in theater and on the stages of Hebrew song.
The moral debt to the large Mizrahi audience that filled the country was repaid through Joe Amar, the new immigrant from Morocco, who received a respectable place on the musical stages.
Aris San - Siga Siga - Slowly Slowly
To watch and listen on YouTube click on the image or click here
Aris San could have continued living the good life without worries.
He married a young Israeli woman, a Christian from Jaffa, started a family, and with the help of the connections he forged, he received Israeli citizenship. His audience poured a lot of money into his pockets, which allowed him to buy a spacious apartment, open more and more clubs, produce more and more records of Greek songs, and continue to bring joy to the audience who adored him.
By the mid-sixties, he was already a hero of the underground culture.
A hero to thousands of club-goers who came every evening to his clubs in Jaffa and waited in line to get in, to watch warm-up acts by a stripper, a magician, and a harmonica player. And patiently wait for the main star of the evening to come on stage and sing to them in Greek, strum his electric guitar with virtuosity, make them jump out of their seats, and make their souls feel good.
Any other performance hall in the country could envy the numbers he managed to achieve.
In Givat Aliyah in Jaffa, he opened a nightclub with 500 seats, which filled up mainly on weekends, the main entertainment days for the central region. When he took the "Riviera" club on Bat Yam beach under his wing, over 2,000 revelers came on Saturday nights, and many others went home disappointed because they couldn't get in.
All this was not enough for him.
He knew that the adoration for him was quiet and did not challenge the leaders of elite culture. That which received the majority of media attention.
He was still sailing in a small boat in a large sea of musical styles that had all gathered in the small country and tried to conquer it – here he competed with Joe Amar for the Mizrahi niche, and there he stood against the Gesher HaYarkon Trio and The Dudaim who performed at "HaHammam" club in Jaffa, a club with an elitist flavor. His way to break the siege was to sing in Hebrew.
His first songs in Hebrew were written for him by Yehuda Ofen.
Yehuda Ofen was not among the famous lyricists of those years, such as: Haim Hefer, Naomi Shemer, Yehiel Mohar, and others, who were well-known in the Tel Aviv scene that frequented cafes and dictated the Hebrew musical soundtrack.
Ofen, who was born in Germany, immigrated to Israel as an Ma'apil (illegal immigrant) and lived for several years in a kibbutz. He was a poet, writer, and journalist at "Al HaMishmar," the newspaper of the "HaShomer HaTzair" movement, a movement that led Israeli culture and art for decades.
Between him and the Greek singer, 18 years his junior and different from him in character and lifestyle – a connection was formed that led to artistic cooperation.
The first songs they wrote together – he wrote the lyrics and Aris San composed the melody – Aris San sang together with a club singer named Judy Alma. A record released by the two was not a big success, and Aris San looked for other partners. He didn't have to try hard. Young female singers at the beginning of their careers waited in line to get a chance to perform in one of his clubs, and were willing to do anything to gain the attention of the charming man, the uncrowned king of nightlife.
Meanwhile, another door opened for him that would bring him into Israeli culture.
Producer Menachem Golan invited him to sing and perform as a singer in a new Israeli film: "Fortuna." The film's plot takes place in Dimona, then a development town inhabited by immigrants from North Africa. The plot brings together Israeli characters from different ends of society, the Mizrahim, with the Israeli center. Greek music served as a backdrop for the story, and etching it into Israeli consciousness as connected to the Mizrahi way of life.
He also appeared in the film as a supporting actor alongside the "HaGashash HaHiver" (The Pale Tracker) trio, Gila Almagor, Yossi Banai, and other entertainment stars.
Aris San and Judy Alma in the song "Lama Shotek HaPaamon" (Why is the Bell Silent) To listen click on the image or on the link here
Aris San in the song "Al Tehi Koeset" (Don't Be Angry) from the film "Fortuna"
To listen and watch click on the image or on the link here
And then a young and quite famous singer came to his club. Her name was Aliza Azikri. When he found Aliza Azikri, she was truly a treasure for him.
About her and him, and where Aris San's music reached, in the next chapter, at the following link:
This is Chapter Four out of six chapters in A Musical Biography of Aris San – a singer, composer, and original creator, who developed and promoted Mediterranean music in Israel, and paved the way for the breakthrough of "Mizrahi music" in Israel.
For reading all chapters of the series - in the table of contents at the following link:
