Southern Serbian Brass Adventures

Today we cyber travel even further south in Serbia. Anybody who likes Balkan Brass Music and Balkan drinks (alcoholic ones apply here) will know this town: Guča, famous for its annual Brass Festival. The event started off as a Balkan Brass competition for insiders, but became over time an international event for many to enjoy - with all the good and bad things which Balkan parties with a lot of alcohol involved bring with them. Lets drop right into the middle of it:

BTW, currently it is Cyber August in Serbia, as this is when the real festival is usually taking place. 

We shall stay a little longer there, as, whilst you are, you need to meet father and son Boban and Marco Marković, probably the two most famous Romany trumpeters and band leaders in the Balkans. They won the competition at least 10 times in a row:

 A funny story related to Boban Markovic, who you met previously on our adventure. I was visiting my late friend Gordana, who was a concert organiser and behind many Balkan Band shows in London. She didn’t like that Boban’s sound was heading in a jazzy direction. So, after several glasses of Šlivovica in her sitting room in Kensal Rise, she rang Boban and caught him fishing in his local river… She told him off for playing his traditional music too jazzy, and he should rather listen to the London Gypsy Orchestra, the group I led at the time, who would play this music much better than him. This is not quite true, but form your own opinion:

We are going South, to areas of sunny Serbian music

Lets travel a little further south, towards central Serbia, more precisely to Čačak. And I think it is high time for your to get some hands-on experience. I shall teach you the music to Čačak, a Serbian dance. Here nobody is quite sure if the town was named after the dance or visa versa:

From there, we can travel 50km eastwards, to Kragujevac, In a funny way, Kragujevac seems to be the birthing place of talented accordionists, as during my own (real life) travels through Serbia, every accordionist that I came across would, when asked, told me that they originated from Kragujevac.

I was fortunate enough to play with Zika, alias Živorad Nikolić, in the time before social media and easy videoing.

Ha! On my voyage into the depth of my hard drives, I found a video from my time playing with Zika: Here we are performing a number of famous Serbian pieces, including Ederlezi, Tama Daleko and Ajde Jano and in the village hall of Wood Norton on the 21st March 2008:

I think we can fit in one more destination for today: Niš. I went there in 2008 to celebrate my late friend Gordana’s birthday. Having always had a great but perhaps hidden interest in the gothic, I particularly enjoyed seeing the Skull tower and the chandelier made of bullets:

When I travelled there in 2008, I had hoped to meet a great Serbian Fiddle player called Alexandar Šišić. Sadly, Alexandar died just a few weeks before I arrived, but I would love to celebrate him by sharing some of his great music for us all to enjoy:

Another happy discovery from digging through my old archives. In this video I'm performing a Kolo by Alexandar Šišić. The music is also accompanied by a slide show of me and my fiddle through the years. This recording is unedited as it is from the years before everyone could edit things on their own computer, so you either paid for an expensive studio, or you hoped to play well in the first place :-)

Trip to Vojvodina, Serbia's little Hungary...

 Lets start a tour around the country, starting in the north:

Vojvodina was a previously Hungarian occupied region. The Serbs call this music ‘Hungarian music’. This following dance is funny as well as interesting for me, as I can hear Hungarian elements as well as similarities to German folk music – with little twists of Romanian harmonic progressions at the end of phrases.

If you feel like a little tour of the area, check this out:

Whilst in Vojvodina, lets pop by Novi Sad, which will be Culture capital in 2021. We are first taking part in a little City Tour:

Whilst in the area, we definitely need to check out the local music. The Romani Band Earth-Wheel-Sky is based in Novi Sad. Their performance of Chaje Shukrarije is rather different from other interpretations:

Flying to Serbia

Today we set out on our big musical autumn cyber travel through Serbia. A place full of contradictions, which reflects in the music. We will explore and discover a highly enthusing dance music back to back with deeply emotional songs. Relaxing music, however, you won't find much in Serbia, at least I didn't, it all grips you, moves you, touches you....

Our online adventures will be mixed with past memories of my real physical travels there...

We will start in the capital city Belgrade, a beautiful city on the Danube. Its name translates to ‘White town’. Let me show you some of the interesting and romantic scenery starting at the Kale, the castle, through the centre, passing by the big Orthodox Cathedral, and finally arriving at the banks of the Danube. Lets go on a little sight seeing trip, and a memory tour from my travels in 2006. 

Whilst watching the pix, do listen to this lovely track from the Serbian Romani band Odjila: 

  

 

 

Time to find a good place to eat to replenish your energies. The Skadarska Ulica is the best place to eat yummy food whilst being showered with local music performer by Serbian Romani bands. Here you'll find out about the history and details of the area, and with the beautiful accompanying images, you can witness the beauty of it also: https://www.011info.com/en/it-happened-once-in-belgrade/belgrades-skadarlija-from-a-bohemian-quarter-to-an-ethnic-style-attraction

Here some music to accompany the images: Sekstet Skadarlija is a group who perform there regularly:

I myself also had a cracking time in the Skadarska Ulica in 2006, here a few pix of the cute interiors of some places:

Serbian people can definitely party, and nightlife here in Skadarlija is exciting:

Bye Bye Romania

 

We did very little reading on this journey. So, on our last day, lets catch up  with this article about Romany Gypsy musicians in Romania - they recommend this is a 7 min read:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/intelligent-travel/2014/03/04/great-read-roma-rhapsody/

Keep you learning hat on, and do get your instrument as I'm about to teach you one more Romanian traditional folk dance, which will be the last traditional item on our Romania discovery Journey: Promoroaca

Remember, to learn more Romanian pieces, there is a nice selection of Balkan sheet music available at 

www.magicmusicstore.org

If you are really interested in more details, then I may share the lecture I provided for a Turkish Culture organisation a little while ago:

One other type of music, in which you need to touch base with for a more comprehensive Romanian music exploration is Manele - loved by some, hated by others, but present at most modern weddings.

Lets start with the old manele, with the most famous Romany manele singers: Adrian Minune:

On my real Romanian travel in 2012, I travelled with a young girl in her old Trabbie up and down the country, listening loudly to Adrian, and it was fun...

Here some more modern manele, from a wedding - sounds/noises which you will hear every summer weekend from each corner in Bucharest, where a wedding is takes place:

And now lets conclude with a total corruption of everyone's taste, with this cheesy sample of manele:

Lets leave Romania in party-style. May I invite you to dance along to another of my all-time-favourite performance songs: Tutti Frutti, made famous by the Tony Gatlif movie Gadjo Dilo. Here performed with my band Tatcho Drom in Hartney Whitney:

Happy Dancing, Bye Bye Romania, and lets see where tomorrow's cyber travel will take us to...

Clejani and other favourite Romany songs

High time to go back to Central Romania. Today I will take you to Clejani, a small village outside Bucharest, and more precisely, to the Romany quarters. I remember when many years ago I visited this village to learn some more music from the Taraf De Haidouks fiddle player Caliu. You met this band a few days ago already.

The directions how to get to Clejani were something like the following: ‘Walk through the fields until you come to a brook, cross over and walk through more fields to the right…'

Anyway, A farmer found me walking round lost, and brought me to a road, where I was invited to jump on a Romany horse Carriage, who brought me to Caliu’s house…

Lets listen to Caliu, improvising around Romanian folk dances, whilst enjoying a little village tour of Clejani:

I think this is a good spot to contribute some of my own music to that journey: Kibori is a weel-known Gypsy song from Romanian regions, and one of my long-term-favourite performance pieces. Here we performed it with my group Tatcho Drom in the Chipping Norton Theatre:

In general I avoid those polished folk orchestra performances, but this following one I love, it’s really cute and driving: 

Lets indulge into another trade, which makes Romany in Romania special: Already in Harry Potter we heard of the Romanian witches. Here some insight into their magic and craft:

From witches to weddings, which actually will be the natural outcome of some couples brought together by love-potions brewed by the witches: Here a Romanian wedding song which touches my heart. It is not what one would expect to hear at a Romanian wedding. I’m glad I found this version with all those lovely images: 

Lets conclude today with some related learning for yourselves. I was taught this wedding dance by Caliu, who you heard above. However, my learning was not as smoothly presented as here in my tutorial:

Moldova, Bucovina and Banat - after a little learning session for yourself

As announced yesterday, today, before we go on a regional exploration, we shall start with a learning activity. So do get your instruments out, and here we go. This is a tutorial to Hora Nunzi, a wedding dance from Central Romania, one I learned from Taraf De Haidouks fiddle player Caliu: 

Time to take off on our regional trip Moldova, North-East Romania. Their traditional music fascinated me from the moment I heard it, it has the right mixture of heart-warming, quirky, intricate and driving, I love it..

It's in old music, where we find the least Western European touches, however, this following piece also hasn't too many Ottoman touches, mostly probably on the tonality, which very much includes micro tones:

We can’t actually leave Moldova, before visiting the Fanfare Ciacorlia. Before becoming world-famous, they started of in the small Romanian village Zece Prăjini. Here from one of their first publications:

We still have some more travelling in today, so lets stay North, and just move a tiny bit the the west, and we arrive in Bucovina. And if you were not aware of it yet, then it is now Monday, wherever and whenever you are, and you are about to go to the Market, as the following piece ‘I’d go on Monday to the Market’ implies:

For the last piece today we hop over Transylvania, to reach another 'B', from Bucovina to Banat. In this traditional dance you really can hear the vicinity to Transylvania:

To conclude the day, and to resolve some dizziness you may have from all the cyber-hopping, here a little map for your orientation: