The maqam is the music of urban Iraq, of cities like Baghdad, Mosul and Basrah, although Baghdad is by far its most important centre. 8 It was in inner Baghdad that the maqam came into its own. Most of the famous singers were natives of inner Baghdad quarters, and it was in the coffee-houses of inner Baghdad that the maqam flourished. Each singer used to frequent the same coffee-house where he would give a nightly recital to the customers, who were usually made up of regulars. The rostrum consisted of two wooden benches, placed next to each other, on top of which chairs were put for the singer and the çalgi. Coffee-house maqam recitals lasted several hours, and in the summer months, and during Ramadan, they would go on until the early hours of the morning. When the radio was introduced into Iraq, and coffee-houses began to install it, the popularity of the live maqam recital began to dwindle. Radio music gradually replaced it, so that by the early 1930s there were maqam recitals during Ramadan only. These too eventually came to an end, and the last coffee-house recital, we are told, took place on the last day of Ramadan 1357/1938. 9

Like most Iraqi folk songs, the maqam has been handed down orally, so that our knowledge of its development is dependent on hearsay. It is difficult to determine, therefore, before any of it was written down, the original modes (maqamat) or combinations (tarakib)10 that made up each maqam recital,11 especially as singers were known to improvise and introduce innovations, in a manner which recalls New Orleans jazz musicians and blues singers. We are told that there were originally seven maqams, 'principal modes', with over eighty shu'ab, 'branch modes'. In time a number of branch modes became principal modes, so that there are now well over fifty principal maqams. One of the best known maqam singers and improvisers of the last century, Ahmad al-Zaydan (1829-1912), turned a number of shu'ab into maqams by transposing a shu'ba in an already established maqam, and giving the transposed mode a new name and a new identity as a full-fledged maqam.12 Al-Zaydan had a number of disciples who learnt this art from him in the three inner Baghdad coffee-houses he frequented throughout his long career. Foremost among his disciples was Rashid al-Qundarchi (1885-1945), a shoemaker by profession, hence the appellation. Al-Zaydan is said to have chosen al-Qundarchi as his successor (خليفتي من بعدي)13 Al-Qundarchi and his younger contemporary, Muhammad al-Qabbanchi (b. 1901), popularly known as al-Gubbanchi, were among the last exponents of the traditional Iraqi maqam.14 Al-Gubbanchi was instrumental in introducing audiences outside Iraq to the maqam.15 As head of the delegation of Iraqi musicians, he took part in an Oriental music congress in Cairo in May 1932. The congress was an important turning point in the history of the maqam. For the first time this typically Iraqi genre was taken out of the cabal-like circles which had jealously guarded it from outsiders, and was made known to the Arab public at large.16