(b Al Mawsil, 1921; d Baghdad, 1977). Iraqi ‘ūd and violin player. He was born into a musical family and received his first musical education from his father, who played the ‘ūd and was a famous constructor of the instrument in Al Mawsil. Djamil studied the ‘ūd with al-Sharif Muhieddin Haidar and the violin with the Romanian Sando Albo at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad. He became one of the best representatives of the Baghdad lute school which aimed to give the ‘ūd the status of a solo concert instrument. His musical activities were manifold. He accompanied important singers of the Iraqi maqām, thus acquiring knowledge of the Iraqi classical traditions; later he used this material in his ‘ūd and violin improvisations. His training in both European and Arab-Ottoman music helped him to create a new technique and a specific style for violin playing in Iraq. He also produced instrumental arrangements of Iraqi folksongs. He composed more than 20 pieces in various instrumental forms (bashraf, samā'i, lunga), some dance compositions and a concerto for ‘ūd, violin and symphony orchestra. In 1949 he published a collection of national anthems for schoolteachers. He used his knowledge of the Iraqi tradition and the instrumental technique he acquired from al-Sharif Muhieddin to write the first ‘ūd tutor in Iraq; published in 1961, it contains six levels of exercises based on Ottoman, Arab and Iraqi compositions. Unlike his younger brother Munir Bashir, he was not widely known in the West.
SCHEHERAZADE QASSIM HASSAN