Ilyas Malayev, 72, Uzbek Musician and Poet, Dies

New York Times
May 7, 2008
Ilyas Malayev, 72, Uzbek Musician and Poet, Dies
By WILLIAM GRIMES

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

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 and grew up in Kattakurgan, a small town near Bukhara, 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, N.J.; three daughters, Nargis and Viola, both of Forest Hills, and Bella, of Tel Aviv; 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.”