Maurice El Medioni

Algerian-Jewish pianist, Maurice El Medioni (born 1928) was born in the port of Oran into a family of musicians. His uncle was the famous ‘Saoud L’Oranais’, who had been a key figure in the Houzi music scene of the 1930s and 40s, until his death in a concentration camp during world war II.
El Medioni trained as a tailor, but during the war, he found work playing for US soldiers stationed in Oran. From them he picked up jazz, boogie-woogie and rumba styles, which he quickly incorporated into his playing to form (along with the Arabic and Jewish influences) a unique playing style. After the war, he found work accompanying singers like Lili Boniche, Line Monty and Reinette l’Oranaise, as well as with a Rai ensemble, where he was the only Jewish member.

In the early 1960s, following the War of Independence, El Medioni and his family left Algeria for France, where by 1967, he had settled in Marseilles (where he remains active today into his 90s). He returned to tailoring, but gradually began to build up his reputation among both jazz and world music fans in France. Since the 1990s, El Medioni has been ‘rediscovered’ internationally. He released an album ‘Cafe Oran’ in 1996 working with members of the Klezmatics, and in 2006, a successful album, recorded in New York, ‘Descarga Oriental’, with Cuban-American jazz percussionsist Roberto Rodriguez. His music has inspired a new project by UK pianist Nikki Yeoh, also called ‘Cafe Oran’.

Key Recordings:
Cafe Oran (Piranha 1996)
Descarga Oriental: New York Sessions (Piranha 2006) with Roberto Rodriguez