[Exotica] [obit] Ilyas Malayev

Ilyas Malayev, 72, Uzbek Musician and Poet, Dies

By WILLIAM GRIMES [New York Times]

Ilyas Malayev, a musician and poet renowned in Uzbekistan and transplanted
to Queens [New York], where he was a legend among fellow Bukharan Jews, died
on Friday [May 2, 2008] in Flushing [Queens, New York]. He was 72 and lived
in Forest Hills [Queens, New York].

The cause was pancreatic cancer, said Lana Levitin, his manager.

Before emigrating from his native land in Central Asia, Mr. Malayev won fame
and official plaudits in the former Soviet Union for his interpretation of
the shash maqam, a body of folk melodies and songs that originated as the
court music of feudal Bukhara. He also performed his own songs, and wrote
lyric poetry in several languages, which he published in the United States
under the titles "Milk and Sugar" and "Devon." Still, he struggled to build
a new creative life after immigrating to America in 1992.

"He's one of maybe half a dozen people in the world who has such a deep
knowledge of the shash maqam," said Walter Z. Feldman, an expert on Ottoman
Turkish music, told a reporter for The New York Times in 1997. "What Malayev
knows almost nobody knows."

Mr. Malayev was born in Mary [Uzbekistan] and grew up in Kattakurgan
[Uzbekistan], a small town near Bukhara [Uzbekistan], where he learned to
play the tar and the tambur, string instruments similar to the lute, as well
as the violin. He also applied himself to the shash maqam, studying with
local teachers and listening to recordings made in the time of the last emir
of Bukhara.

In 1951 he moved to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, where he performed
in various state-supported ensembles. He appeared with the Uzbek Song and
Dance Ensemble from 1952 to 1960, the Ensemble of Singers and Dancers of the
Peoples of the World from 1953 to 1956, and the Folk and Variety Orchestras
of Uzbekistan Radio from 1956 to 1962. From 1962 to 1992 he performed with
the Symphonic Variety Orchestra of Uzbekistan Radio.

Mr. Malayev achieved great popularity as a variety performer and wedding
entertainer, combining comedy routines, poetry recitations, excerpts from
the shash maqam and his own songs. His performances in stadiums drew tens of
thousands of Uzbeks, and his appeal reached beyond his native republic.

"No occasion would be complete without Malayev," he told a reporter for The
New York Times in 1997. "When Brezhnev came to visit, my wife and I always
sang."

Despite his reputation, Mr. Malayev was unable to publish his poetry in the
Soviet Union. He attributed this to anti-Semitism. He belonged to a small
Jewish minority in a predominantly Muslim (although officially atheist)
society. Traditionally, Jews performed as musicians at the court of the
Bukharan emirs.

After emigrating, Mr. Malayev found his way to Queens, where an enclave of
Bukharan Jews was developing in Rego Park and Forest Hills. He became a
central figure in the area's cultural life, organizing local musicians and
singers into an ensemble, Maqam, for which he was an instrumentalist and
music director. As the Ilyas Malayev Ensemble, the group released a compact
disc on the Shanachie label in 1997 called "At the Bazaar of Love." After
Mr. Malayev's death, the group was renamed the Ilyas Malayev Ensemble Maqam.

Besides his wife, Muhabbat Shamayeva, a vocalist with the ensemble, Mr.
Malayev is survived by two sons, Radj, of Forest Hills, and Gera, of Leonia,
New Jersey; three daughters, Nargis and Viola, both of Forest Hills, and
Bella, of Tel Aviv [Isreal]; 15 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

"While other Central Asian émigré musicians plugged in and sang pop songs in
the hope of appealing to a younger crowd, Malayev never abandoned his belief
in the power of traditional music and poetry to stir the spirit," said
Theodore Levin, whose book "The Hundred Thousand Fools of God: Musical
Travels in Central Asia (and Queens, New York)" includes an affectionate
portrait of Mr. Malayev. "A listener didn't need to understand Uzbek or
Tajik to feel the power of his songs and poetry."