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Transpacific Sound Paradise
Saturday, April 21, 2001: NY Greek Music Festival Preview
with guest DJ George Sempepos
Click here to hear this show now.
Greek music expert George Sempepos of the Greek-American band Annabouboula
previews the World Music Institute's NY Greek Festival at Town
Hall, 123 W43 St, Manhattan, Friday-Sunday April 27-29.
For NY Greek Festival information contact World Music Institute
at 212 545-7536 or http://www.heartheworld.org
For info about Balkans Without Borders, an Ominum
records benefit compilation for Doctors Without Borders
featuring Annabouboula and Immigrant Suns (see TSP 4/14/01, below)
and Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass band (see TSP 1/6/01, below):
http://www.omnium.com/balkans/index2.html
Contact George Sempepos with your questions and comments: <epsilonprods@yahoo.com>
This week's playlist, annotated by George Sempepos:
** signifies a recording that you might actually be able to find
* may be available on import; try Greek Music And Video
ARTIST SONG TITLE SOURCE COMMENT
1. ** Kristi Stassinopoulou "Aeolos" Echotropia (CD)
Soon to be released on Tinder.
Cut describes a train trip through Northern Greece, hence the
vocal mock-Bulgarian Voices shtick.
(deejay segment)
2. ** Zourna Masters Of Flambouro "Gaida" eponymous Excellent Greek Gypsy zourna-and-daouli (drum) group from Greek Macedonia, led by Christos Karakostas, recorded on tour in the US in 1998. Last of its kind in their region. Title refers to imitation of bagpipe sound. At one time, this was standard wedding dance music in much of what is now Greece and Turkey. Privately distributed CD, call Neal Sandler 510 638 5214, nealsand@aol.com
3. I Crysodaktili Brass Band #3 on WMI promo sampler Name
of band means "the Golden-Fingered ones". Before the
film "Time Of The Gypsies' with its Bregovich score popularized
this style, it was largely unknown in Greece outside of its immediate
environs. Over a hundred years ago, though, brass bands like this
were common not only in the North, but also among the Asia Minor
Greeks.
(deejay segement)
4. ** Goran Bregovich, "Cajesukarije Cocek", from
the CD Edrelizi (compilation of soundtracks), from the motion
picture "Underground"; An arrangement of the Macedonian
Gypsy folk favorite also recorded by Esma. Composer/arranger Bregovich,
originally from Sarajevo, has made the Balkan Gypsy brass band
a big feature of his soundtrack work, and has popularized the
genre among audiences that were unfamiliar with it in Greece,
and Europe in general.
deejay segement
5. * Chronis Aithonides "T'Aithonia Tis Anatolis"["The
Nightingales of The East"]
from The 1990 Minos Greek LP of the same name, by this sweet-voiced
Thracian folk singer, who has also been a Church Cantor, and will
appear Friday night at Town Hall in NYC. The song is one of the
certifiably-oldest in all Greek folk music, and laments the conquest
of Adrianople (modern Edirne) by the Turks in 1361.
6. Church Cantor Thasyovoulos Stanitsas, St. Dimitrious Cathedral,,
Athens 1968, excerpt of Greek Orthodox liturgy; from a National
Geographic LP, "The Music Of Greece"
Still Microtonal After All These Years, Greek Orthodox cantillation
is like a living museum of pre-"Early" Early Music.
The Greeks often refer to their Church music as "Byzantine"
but in fact it's not certain if this is what the "Byzantine"
(actually Eastern Roman) Empire's music sounded like before the
15th century, when Constantinople was conquered by the Turks.
7. * Yusuf Bilgin (Gazel singer) "Ey gonul Yar Iste" GAZEL, Classical Sufi Music of the Ottoman Empire (CMP Germany).. the missing link between the Greek Asia Minor "Amane'" vocal improv style, and Byzantine and Ottoman composed music.
Deejay segment
8. Yiannis Floriniotis "Triantafillon Pentafillon"("Five-Petalled
Rose"). Afieroma Ston Ponto (Dedication to Pontus) 1983
LP.
The Pontic Greeks were the Asia Minor refugees from around the
Black Sea. Their intense, odd-metered spike-fiddle-driven dance
music is identical to that of the Laz, and other people who still
live in the north of Turkey.
9. Mihalis Kaliontzidis Ensemble, from WMI sampler CD- Pontic
performers who will
bw featured at Town Hall on April 28th.
10. * Chrysanthos "Pou Eisai Meg' Alexandre"("Where
Are You, Alexander The Great")
Another Pontic singer, from a CD where he collaborates with famous
Greek Laiko
(Popular) crooner Stelios Kazantzithis, called "Ta Aithonia
You Pontou" (The Nightingales Of Pontus")
11. * Eleftheria Arvanitaki "Ta Kormia Ke Ta Maheria" ("Bodies And Knives"), title track from her CD collaboration with NYC-based Armenian-American ethnic-fusion composer and oud player Ara Dinkjian. One of the biggest hits from this art-pop singer whose roots are in the rebetika revival of the 1980s.
12. Mogollar (unknown instrumental in 10/8 time from the early
'70s) This band,
which featured the late Baris Manco for a while, was Turkey's
answer to Fairport Convention- a folklore band that rocked.
13. Unknown Albanian singer; from an Ulqini Record Store
dance-pop compilation;
available as cut #15 on a 2001 marathon premium for this show;
also available as cut #8
from the Ulquini Record Store. She's singing something about Kosovo.
Contemporary Dance-Rock influenced Folk (or maybe "Turbo-Folk??")
14. * Nikos Saragoudas "Ousak/Katifes" from the LP "Avghi [The Dawn] Makam with Oud" Sung by Saragoudas' wife, Giasemi (Jasmine) Kantartzoglou-- an Asia Minor melody with Greek lyrics- Café-Aman style proto-belly dance music, descended from the turn-of-the-century Oriental Greek repertoire. This is the beat the Greeks call "Tsifte-Teli". The tsifte-teli side of Asia Minor music has been a continuous influence on every kind of Greek folk and Pop music.
15. Ganimian And His Oriental Music "Come With Me To The Casbah" title track, Atco 33-107 U.S. based oud player Chick Ganimian's attempt at belly-dance rock n' roll crossover from the early (?) '60s. Tsifte-Teli meets R&B sleaze.
16. * Tarkan "Simarik" from CD "Tarkan" Contemporary Turkish Dance-Pop from this major star. Watch out for the Dinah Shore-In Istanbul vocal effects.
17. * Terror-X Crew "DJ Alex In The Teke" Contemporary
Greek hip-hop, for a goof, samples an old mock-rebetika novelty
song about the sounds of the "teke" (Hashish-den)
from the rap CD " I Polis Ealou"
18. *Opistodromiki Kompania "Isouna Xypoliti" ("You Were Barefoot") from their 1982 live recording, this is the rebetika revival band that launched Eleftheria Arvanitaki's career. The song is one of the oldest rebetika tunes; the musicians were young enthusiasts for what by then was a forgotten genre. Great bouzouki taksim (solo) starts things off in the mode of Sabah . "You were barefoot and pickin' greens for your supper when I met you; now with me, you put on airs and ask for earrings!"
19. ** Markos Vamvakaris "O Hasapis [The Butcher]" from the Rounder CD "Bouzouki Pioneer" Perhaps the greatest rebetika songwriter-performer, Vamvakaris in 1932 was the first genuine Manga (hash-smoking tough guy) to turn Professional . He lived the life, talked the talk, walked the walk and revolutionized Greek music with slice-of-life tunes like these; an outlaw subculture became a national passion, and a thousand "Zorba" stereotypes were born..
20. * Agathonas Iakovidis, Me Piasan Sto Karavi (They Busted
Me On The Boat)
A classic Piraeus Manga lament about smuggling Hash and Heroin
and getting busted,
circa 1920. Iakovidis is one of the best latter day (post-1975
revivalist) interpreters of this
down-and-dirty old-timey repertoire, which in its day was a contemporary
of the Cab Callaway "Reefer Man" type song.
21. ** Anestos Delias, "O Ponos Tou Prezakia" (The Junkie's Pain) included on the Rounder compilation "My Only Consolation". Classic of the Piraeus Manga (tough-guy, hash-smoker) Rebetik repertoire, this song describes a drug addict's ultimate fate, and prefigured the actual death of this singer-songwriter-bouzouki player from an overdose (presumably) a few years later.
22. * Lela Papathopoulou " To Prosfigaki (The Refugee)" from CD "Megales Kyries Tou Rempetikou Tragoudiou" ("Great Ladies Of Rembetik Song") Famous song about Greek refugee from the Asia Minor Catastophe (ethnic cleansings of 1912-1922), "I've been rich, I've been poor, now I play my oud at the Cafe-Aman". Papadopoulou is one of the last great women singers old enough to have shared a stage with the first generation of professional Rembetika performers.
23. ** Annabouboula To Prosfigaki Greek Fire A contemporary
version of the song above. Anna Paidoussi, the vocalist, is Greek-American.
We overdubbed the Smyrna-style fiddle after Shanachie records
insisted the American release of this song sound more "ethnic-roots".
For more info on Annabouboula releases etc. contact epsilonprods@yahoo.com
Back
to Transpacific Sound Paradise Playlist index
Contact Rob Weisberg by sending e-mail to Rob's Mail Page. WFMU main page:
http://www.wfmu.org