Dollar Bin Delights: Port of Suez – Exotic Music of the Middle East

The musicians behind Crown's Port of Suez album remain a mystery but the violinist and bongo basher have impressive chops.  

Here's the scoop...

Released in 1958 by Crown Records – the budget subsidiary of Modern Records founded by the Bihari brothers – Jules, Lester, Saul and Joe Bihari in 1945 – Port of Suez: Exotic Music of the Middle East looks very like a cheap cash-in on the growing interest in belly dance exotica from the hi-fi enthusiast sector. 

Chaino cover shot by Frank Bez

Other than the song titles, there's not much information to be gleaned from the cover. There are no musician, composer, producer or arranger credits, in fact the only person involved in the entire production who gets name-checked is the sleeve photographer Frank Bez who snapped the suitably tribal-looking portrait of Chaino (aka Philadelphia's Leon Johnson) for the cover of Jungle Mating Rhythms album released by Verve the same year. You can catch a glipse of Chaino in the 1961 Dennis Hopper flick "Night Tide" during Linda Lawson's dance scene on Venice Beach. 

The conspicuous lack of session and song publishing info combined with the enticing cover art is often a sign of a shoddy production knocked out quickly to turn a fast buck on a passing fad. While that may have been the goal, the unnamed musicians in this instance – particularly the violinist and percussionist – reveal a skill level and feel for Middle Eastern ensemble play that's way above your average exotica dabbler-for-hire. And it certainly doesn't sound like an impromptu throwdown involving some slumming 'name' jazzers under contract elsewhere but eager to pick up a session fee whatever style of music happened to be the order of the day. Nope, these Port of Suez hombres clearly know what their doing – even if they've never been anywhere near Egypt – as you can hear from the song clips below. 

Having sifted through a number of similar looking artifacts from the late 50s and early 60s, I can say that Port of Suez: Exotic Music of the Middle East is one of the better "belly dance" records you're likely to come across in a local thrift shop or record store dollar bin which makes the lack of artist info all the more frustrating. If the music jogs any memories or even second-hand stories regarding the true identities of the  mysterious players responsible, feel free to leave a message in the comments section below.