The last two centuries in the world has seen a rise of nationalism and conflicts, an imposed war between different cultures, different religions, the east and the west, modernity and tradition. The memories of different cultures and ethnicities living together in relative peace has faded out and it seems like a surreal fantasy in the eyes of cynics and non-believers. Thankfully it hasn’t been totally destroyed and there are some Honest Jon’s around to prove it with 2007’s release.

Chaabi — ‘of the people’ — has its roots in the Andalusian music of Moorish Spain, spreading to North Africa with exiled Jewish and Moorish communities; but it really took off in the music schools, parties and bars of occupied, post-WWII Algiers, where its Andalusian, Middle Eastern and North African lineage infused with the Mediterranean soundtrack of that era — chanson, jazz, snatches of tango, a little boogie-woogie.

It was a brave signal that Jewish and Muslim musicians can work in harmony: the first European show from an Algerian orchestra brought together by a project, three years in the making, that has involved a film, an album produced by Damon Albarn, and now a series of concerts across Europe. Guardian

“They told me that it was a group of Muslim and Jewish musicians who used to play in the cafés and at weddings and other ceremonies in the casbah. Before the war of independence, Jews and Muslims resided together in the same religiously diverse community, sharing the same lives and making music in common. I decided to find out if any of them were still alive and if they were to track them down.” Independent

El Anka had long since died, but Bousbia tracked down his son, the chaabi musician Abdel Hadi Halo, and together they located some 40 musicians, all of them over 60 and some as old as 90, living in France and Algeria. In November 2006 they bought them together in Algiers for a reunion concert, to record an album produced by Damon Albarn and to shoot a documentary film. Independent

An eyewatering story indeed whose peak is the music itself.