Showing posts with label gypsy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gypsy. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Técsői Banda

I got in an email discussion recently with the host of a freeform world music radio program. I was trying to convince him (it's funny how the word convince starts with "con") that he should do a show on the intersection of gypsy and Jewish music. It'd be easy to pull great recordings of both historic and contemporary collaborations. Here's one video I was thinking of. Consider it Exhibit A.

Técsői Banda: Medley of Mixed Gypsy and Jewish Melodies


The video was uploaded by YouTube user Dumneazu, who also writes an eponymous blog. As he notes...
"The Técsői Banda playing in Budapest after the premier of the film "The Last Kolomajka" at the Nyitott Muhely gallery. We had just played a Yiddish song I learned from Arkaday Gendler, and after Yura began to sing the Gypsy version, which led into a medley of tunes from the mixed Jewish and Gypsy repetoires of the Western Ukraine, Hungary, and Romania. The Técső Band are Hutsul Gypsies from Tjaciv, Ukraine."
The exchange he's describing is not uncommon. With the loss of Yiddishkeit culture during the Holocaust, many klezmer musicians have sought insight and material from surviving Gypsy musicians. These musicians often played with Jewish klezmers at both Jewish and Gypsy gigs, and knew the klezmer repertoire well. For another example of this exchange, check out Bob Cohen's, of Di Naye Kapelye, tale of learning from Romanian Gypsies. Here's a second video, also by Dumneazu, featuring members of Di Naye Kapelye.

Florin Kodoba Teaching Transylvanian Fiddle Style


"Florin Kodoba, lead fiddler of the Palatka Band (Palatca, Romania) from the central Transylvanian plains leading students in a workshop on fiddle style. The students are learning by ear, as this is a traditional music that - in its village context - is "learned but not taught" by Gypsy dynasties of musician families. Jake Shulman-ment is assisiting as both appeared with Di Naye Kapelye to teach Roma instrumental music traditon at the 2008 Weimar Yiddish weeks folk dance seminar in Weimar, Germany"

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Train De Vie - Gypsy meets Klezmer music

I just ran across this fabulous scene from the movie Train de Vie where Gypsy and Jewish peasants and musicians collide. I'm sure I've seen it before, so here's a general hat tip to whichever blog or mailing list go it first. Train de Vie is a film by Radu Mihailenau which tells the story of a fictional "small Jewish village in Central Europe [that] organize[s] a fake deportation train so that they can escape the Nazis and flee to Palestine." (Quote from IMDB)

Jewish klezmer vs Gipsy music - Train de vie


Hat tip to YouTube user TaraDeHaidouks for posting the video.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Klezmer, with violin and handgun

Update. I'm completely an idiot. That's not a handgun on the cover it's a violin neck aimed directly at the camera. sigh. That makes much more sense. Ignorant in public. Yep, that's me.

Ok, so I'll admit I'm a sucker for album covers. I've bought numerous albums just for the covers (most of which were only worth the covers, ah well). Here's one that I will be definitely buy for the cover, though the music is just fine too.

Klezmer Karma album cover

The artist is Roby Lakatos, the album is "Klezmer Karma." The handgun? Don't ask me. Here's the AvantiClassical record label description of the album...
"Roby Lakatos and Ensemble proudly present their new recording for avanticlassic and avantijazz. This luxurious new project is a fusion of the hugely popular Lakatos Gypsy style with a Yiddish and Klezmer repertoire.

With support from the world-renowned Yiddish singer Myriam Fuks, the Italian accordionist Aldo Granato and the celebrated Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, this luxury SACD production will delight both fans of Roby and of Yiddish Klezmer music.

A unique homage to some of the most inspiring tunes of western musical history with a very modern feel and with arrangements containing elements of Tango, Funk, Jazz and Waltz. This is an extremely refreshing and original musical journey."

Still don't get the handgun. Did Yiddish Gangster become the new look? Should I go rent a copy of "Once Upon A Time in America?" Anyway, here's a YouTube video of Lakatos violining up it Gangster Style on the Yiddish classic "Romania, Romania".



Hat tip to AvantiClassical for posting the video.