Charles “Chick” Ganimian
Born: January 18, 1926, Troy, New York
Death: December 3, 1988, South Orange, New Jersey
Active years recording: 1946-1961
Label Association: Nor-Ikes Records, Atco, East West

With summer in full swing, we turn our attention again to the post-World War Two generation of Armenian-American musicians who codified their unique blend of Armenian traditional melodies and American popular music. We’re revisiting a group we’ve touched on before, the Nor-Ikes Band, from a different angle. Our first piece on the group explored the career and perspective of the band's clarinetist Souren Baronian, but like many musically pioneering groups it was creative partnership that drove the work, and so we share here another set of songs which highlight the group’s oudist and driving force, Chick Ganimian. The music heard here is paired with excerpts of Ganimian in his own words, from a 1963 interview conducted with Arno Karlen and later published as “New York’s Near East” in the January 1966 edition of Holiday Magazine.  

Charles Ganimian, popularly known as Chick, was born January 18th, 1926 in Troy, New York, to Nishan and Nevart Ganimian just four years after the couple's emigration from Marash, Turkey in 1922. In his interview with Arno Karlen, Chick paints a vivid picture of his musical development, first in childhood when his passion was sparked, then over the years as that passion intersected with the realities of working as a dedicated and skilled musician, spanning America’s pre- and postwar entertainment industry:

“When I was a kid," Ganimian says, "I played the violin, but I knew it wasn't really my instrument. What I liked was playing violin-and-oud duets with my father. He's from Turkey, like my mother, and he knows a tremendous number of Armenian and Turkish songs. We spoke Armenian at home, but when my parents didn't want me to understand they used Turkish. So I learned Turkish too.

When I was seventeen we moved to New York City, and the next year I went into the Army and served two years. When I got out, I didn't know what to do with myself. I was playing the oud a lot, learning from my father, but there wasn't any way for someone like me to work full time as a musician — except on Eighth Avenue, and in those days it was a much smaller scene and almost entirely Greek.

"So I made my living butchering. On the side I formed an Armenian band. I called it the Nor-Ikes. In Armenian nor means new, and ike means sunrise. We were all young American-born Armenians, and I wanted the name to show that the traditional music was having a rebirth here. Soon more bands formed, but we were one of the first. We stuck together for fourteen years, until the end of 1961. 

We played Armenian weddings and parties and church affairs.

For years I went on that way — butchering, playing weekends with the Nor-Ikes. Summers I played at Armenian hotels and resorts in the Catskills. Sometimes I filled in at the Arabian Nights on Eighth Avenue. Things picked up there.

People traveled to Turkey and Greece and North Africa, heard the music, came back and wanted to hear it again. The movies picked it up. Never on Sunday was a hit. Until then, no one thought of making it on his own; if someone hired you, he hired your whole band. Now it was changing. I was getting offers of regular jobs. I went to work in the Grecian Palace, because then it had some of the best musicians. I spent a year at the Britania. I learned Greek stuff, and then the Arabic music and language. The Round-Table decided to try belly dancing, and they needed a leader for the Oriental show. I'd been building a name, and they gave me a four-week contract to try it out. The second night they extended my contract to six months. That was two and a half years ago. I've been there ever since."

Karlen’s interview was conducted in 1963 and Chick continued to work in NY at the Round-Table all the way until 1969; in addition to holding down this steady commitment he continued working numerous other venues around New York and in the Catskill Mountains. His success as a performer crossed over into pop music and jazz, and in 1967 he performed as part of Herbie Mann’s ensemble at the Newport Jazz Festival; footage of that performance can seen here. Beyond being a prolific and hardworking performer, today it is his recorded legacy that stands. In addition to the early 78rpm recordings with the Nor-Ikes, Chick led a band on the ground-breaking major label record “Come With Me to the Casbah,” recorded in 1959 and released on Atco Records. The record featured Chick’s former Nor-Ikes bandmate Steve Bogosian on clarinet, as well as the iconic Armenian-American vocalist Onnik Dinkjian. The record was pivotal in widening the exposure and popularity of the culturally-mixed music which the Nor-Ikes and other post-war Armenian-American dance bands had begun to pioneer in the preceding decades. Along with the Nor-Ikes recordings shared here, we’ve included the 45rpm single from that record, Daddy LoLo. The song features Onnik Dinkjian and is a playful American pop music rendition of the Armenian song Dari Lolo, which we hear on the Nor-Ikes record from some 20 years prior.  

On December 3, 1988, Chick Ganimian passed away in New Jersey. He left behind a musical legacy and impact through his dedication and years of performance, which is felt in the continued practice of Armenian-American music to this day. 

A special thanks to the SJS Charitable Trust for their generous support of our work to digitize and share our collection of 78 rpm records.