Joe Tayoun In His Own Words

by Marion S. Jacobson

Immigrant Roots

My grandfather Sliman left a Lebanon that was beautiful, as it still is today. Back then under the Ottoman Empire, there were no opportunities. Emigrating to America in 1918, my grandparents [Sliman and Nora Tayoun] struggled through the Depression and Prohibition, like all the other immigrants coming at that time. My grandfather had a little shop where they sold booze and played card games.

The story goes that on Sundays amongst the Lebanese, the Italians and all kinds of people, there were open doors. If somebody came to your house, you fed them. Apparently my grandfather noticed everybody was coming to his house to eat his wife’s cooking.

The Middle East Restaurant

So [my grandparents] started a restaurant in a little row home in South Philadelphia. There was live Greek, Arabic, Turkish, Armenian music, and they called it The Middle East. All those people came, plus the Americans so it was a hot scene. Anybody who was anybody would go to the Middle East–people like Alfred Hitchcock and various celebrities. Middle Eastern food was hot. We were selling falafel and hummus before anybody else.

Ten years later, they got a bigger place in Old City at Second and Chestnut. This was a five-story building. They cut a hole between the first and second floor, and dropped down a balcony that you could look down from, that’s where the band played. They put in a spiral staircase and decked it out like One Thousand and One Nights. There was fine carpet, tapestries, beautiful artwork, brickwork and tile. Belly dancing and live music every night of the week.

I grew up going into that place listening to all of these great musicians, be they Turkish, Arabic, Armenian, Persian or Greek. I would sit on the steps and watch everything. That’s how I started.

My older brother Eddie was the house drummer; then it was Michael, another older brother. I was bussing tables and thinking, that should be me up there! I just loved it! So one day they said, give the kid a tambourine. I kept learning more and eventually I was playing there four nights a week Thursday through Sunday! I was in high school.

In 1990, my dad and uncle were going to sell the place. So my brother Mike and I said no! we’ll run The Middle East. I quit my job teaching social studies in Camden Public Schools and moved into my mom’s house. We made some changes—turning the Middle East into a music venue. We were booking regional and national acts! We became one of the hottest live music venues in Philly. The Prism network, which is Comcast now, broadcast a live show in The Middle East. We won a local Emmy for that. We kept the [focus on] Middle Eastern music. We love playing our traditional music. We can play for hours and hours. We love the challenge of playing and doing so many different genres. We blend Arabic, Armenian, Indian and rock and roll–the stuff we knew and grew up with as American teenagers.

The days when Philadelphians could enjoy “Live Music and Belly Dancing Nightly” at the Middle East Restaurant are long gone; the restaurant was sold to an Egyptian owner who called it The Nile. but this 2016 Tribute to The Middle East at Frankie Bradley’s captures the vibe.

World Rhythms Night

I started an open jam session on Monday nights when The Middle East was closed. We called it World Rhythms Night, a very cool night that became popular. We were packed, musicians kept coming in and it was awesome. People like Jeffrey Gaines, a popular singer at the time, and Krist Novoselic, the bass player from Nirvana, would come whenever they were in town. That’s how I met all the friends I have now.

World Rhythms Night was also how Jaffna got started, with Branavan Ganesan playing tabla, Roger Mrgdichian on oud, and Raji Malik on guitar.

“Kadal Karai” by JAFFNA

Besides the fact these gentlemen are my absolute best friends, playing this music keeps me on the edge of my musicality, to where my potential as a musician can be. Even songs we‘ve played for years and years, it evolves with us. I’m always playing on my edge, where I’m capable of playing.

Atzilut Concerts for Peace

Philadelphia cantor Jack Kessler came to one of my World Rhythms Monday nights with his son Flippy, who plays electric violin. They liked what they saw there and wanted to bring Arabic musician into his group to collaborate with Jewish musicians. So I would bring in different Arabic musicians to play.

These collaborations became formal concert where Jack would be singing in Hebrew, [Lebanese oud virtuoso] Maurice Chedid would be singing in Arabic, and Flippy would be jumping up on tables with his electric blue violin. Jack—we miss him dearly—was a very creative and free thinker. He took existing songs and arranged them, with odd time signatures, and really hip stuff. A lot of excitement and surprise in every performance.

There were often Holocaust survivors and others in the audiences who understood these shows as efforts to create dialog and promote tolerance. We got invited to tour the US, Germany, Austria and Denmark. We even played the United Nations, for 250 delegates, including the President of Latvia. They were called Concerts for Peace.

Even though the goal was to promote dialog, I felt like they weren’t political concerts, but modeling ways that people can get along. The fusion of Jewish and Arabic music dates back over 1,000 years to Al-Andalus and the age of religious tolerance among Christians, Muslims and Jews. We were updating it in a modern context.

Watch this rare clip of Atzilut featuring Cantor Jack A. Kessler (1924-2024).

World Drummers of Independence Charter School

I was teaching a class called Global Arts where I was teaching drumming with sixth, seventh and eighth graders. I would expose them to international music of all kinds. We’d be singing and dancing, but centered on hands-on drumming. ICS proposed a grant to do an afterschool program that incorporated traditional marching drums with traditional African and Middle Eastern percussion.

The ICS kids would perform for the special needs kids at CADES, an afterschool program for children with physical and intellectual disabilities. We did performances and mini-workshops for the CADES kids—the ICS kids were good little drumming ambassadors. We played at the Kimmel Center, and the International Children’s Festival at UPenn. I love letting kids fly with the talent they have!

See the World Drummers of Independence Charter School in action.

The Roddenberries (Star Trek-themed band named for show creator Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991)

My brother Billy and I were asked to provide some entertainment for the [Philadelphia] Fringe Festival afterparty, which was produced by Scott Johnston, a friend of mine since Billy and I ran the Middle East. We weren’t able to get any other musicians to join us at 2:00 am. So the two of us started playing the Fight Music from the original Star Trek series. We put a microphone up on stage and told the audience, ‘come up and talk about anything Star Trek, your favorite episode, what it means to you.’ All of a sudden there was a line at the mic. Then other musicians getting off their gigs were starting to show up. They were jumping onstage to play this music with us. The light bulb went off, and we said we need to start a Star Trek band! We called it the Roddenberries.

It’s a sexy, smart sci-fi media extravaganza. We all dress up in different garb–three singers backed by a nine, ten-piece band plus dancers. We play music from Star Trek episodes along with everything from Frank Sinatra to Queen. We do comedy and parodies, it’s like a cabaret. We are now the official house band for the official Star Trek Convention every year in Las Vegas.

[Get Star Trekkified with Joe and The Roddenberries here]

This story has been condensed and edited from Marion Jacobson’s interview with Joe Tayoun, conducted on January 20, 2024 and TAQSIM’s 2019 interview focusing on Tayoun as torchbearer of the Philadelphia Middle Eastern music scene, available on YouTube here.

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