Historical Portrait
Jack Bakalian playing dumbelek, portrait, photograph
Archive record
Photograph caption: Mr. Bakalian "from Armenia playing dumbeg [dumbelek] he bought in Syria." Forms part of a group of field materials documenting Jack Bakalian performing Armenian music on the dumbelek on an unspecified day, collected by Sidney Robertson Cowell in Fresno, California.
About this photograph
The photograph was taken during Sidney Robertson Cowell's fieldwork for the W.P.A. California Folk Music Project in Fresno, California. The project, concentrated in 1938 to 1940, recorded and photographed traditional musicians across Northern California's immigrant communities.
The caption identifies the subject as Jack Bakalian and notes he was "from Armenia playing dumbeg [dumbelek] he bought in Syria." The dumbelek is a goblet drum. The photograph forms part of a group of field materials documenting Bakalian performing Armenian music on the instrument, though the specific day was not recorded.
Cowell deliberately worked across different immigrant traditions rather than focusing on a single community, which accounts for the project's range of subjects. The recordings and photographs are held by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
Compiled from the catalogue record and reference notes on the formats and events involved. The archive record above is the primary source.
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