Darkness from within a voice...

Towards a new way to approach Rebetiko

Kostas Masselos (Nouros) (1892-1972)

It took me a lot of years up to the moment a searchlight turned on inside me and I could realize that my roots from Asia Minor had shadowed secretly the biggest part of my life. As an example, I could not understand before why I always had felt as a stranger on the Cycladic islands, which I admire so much. On the contrary, every time the boat was passing or came to anchor to islands of the Eastern Aegean sea, I was feeling something warm flowing inside me. Like if I had come home to a familiar landscape but I could not understand the reason why.

I have to notice that I never heard a word from my father and his relatives, as long as they lived, about their hometown Izmir and likewise nobody, from my mother´s side, had ever explained why one of four inhabitants of Thessalonica, my hometown, suddenly had disappeared when the Germans came to town.

The catalyst which put the first searchlight on was the moment I listened to Rita Abadzi’s warm breathes in the remarkably fine CD “Rita Abadzi 1933-1938”, Heritage.
The second searchlight was the re-discovering of Kostas Masselos (Nouros).

The moist sound of his nickname Nouros twirled round in my mind. I was trying to find the, unknown to me, origin of this word. I could not find it in Turkish lexicons and not in Spanish. I asked a man from Argentina, I thought it could come from the French noir (black). No result. All of a sudden, I met a Syrian girl coming from Turkey and she gave me the answer. Nuro in Syrian means, fire.

I had imagined instinctively something like that because from the “black” and soft like velvet voice of this man comes out a burning breath which do not singe but touches you carelessly with flames which do not burn.

Nouros had an inward voice, not outward as, for example, Vangelakis Sofroniou. You go into ecstasy though he does not lift you up in the sky as Dalgas did or Stratos Payioumtzis. Nouros does not break your heart as Mitsos Atraidis can do, but he takes you into half dark, melancholic, mysterious and monastic rooms. He softens your soul and throws you on downy pillows, while you feel like breathing perfumed smoke in phosphoric colours.
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Nouros voice had a duende*1. It was not a gothic demon, it was of another short from Asia Minor, in a blue violet colour, like the inner side of sea-shells. But from one moment to another his demon could change appearance. He then got a dark grey colour, a shining and metallic surface, like an oyster, with squeaking scales, as if every one of them had its own life.

His duende was volcanic but with en inward activity. It was passionate but covered with a veil of calm, granite old Greek dignity. This oblong demon, looking like an eel, was fastened on Nouros and enticed him into masculine lovers.

His duende concealed him with an undefined and unsatisfied melancholy. That one which never reveals when and how you have been loved from all those who walked besides you, slept with you, been photographed with you, or if they did it because of other hidden reasons. That melancholy which accompanies you through all your life and leads to an old age, keeping you half-drowned into seas of wonderings and dubious memories. The same melancholy which was standing besides him under the night lights of the music places where the customers were longing for the black and waving sounds coming out from his mouth.
Because his voice was moving in spirals, “folding” and ”unfolding” from his larynx’s contractions and the ups and downs of his lower jaw.

Everybody had something nice to say about Nouros good heart. In his few photos he looks serious, mysterious and distant. Perhaps, those who have met him got a different opinion, but there is something in his sad eyes that makes me think so.

Closed to the end of “Tabahana mané” (1931)*2 he makes something fantastic with his voice, covering with nimbus clouds of envy (?) the heart of the magic but egoistic Stellakis Perpiniadis who was present during the recording. Stellakis opened his mouth and spat out this “unexpected”, rigid and frozen comment: ”drop dead, faggot!”

Duende and the choosen human being are living together as two different entities. Duende decides to whom it will stay and how long, enlightening and torturing. The human being is like a feather which leds away by the wind,though duende has a stable and callous substance. The meaning of right and wrong, good and evil are stabilised and definitely balanced. Duende never pets, it only becomes frantic.

Nouros got perhaps not sorrowed or annoyed by Stellaki’s comment (ask his heart for being sure…) but duende does not forgive or accept stupidity. It became livid, lifted up its scales but its anger evaporated within a second. It took back its sea-shell colour and forced Nouros to smile and answer in a happy-go-lucky way.

The comment “drop dead, faggot” contains a couple of words which give en electric shock to each other and we ought to approach them in two different ways. According to the concept of that time (1930΄s) and the today’s one. The 1930’s was a totally different time compared to 2000’s.
The World War 1 and the defeat in Asia Minor were fresh in people’s mind. Death was like a well-known visitor. On the other hand, men have always had a tough way when they’re joking and the codes inside Rebetiko esnaf ”permitted” similar word games.
No matter what Stellakis Perpiniadis had in mind his comment sounds sharp. One can see it as wickedness or envy for Nouros’ voice. Those two men knew each other well and Stellakis appreciated Nouros and admired him, something that he did not use to do. But at that moment threw an arrow and hit Nouros in his Achilles’ heel.

People within Rebetiko were not angels. Nevertheless, some of them were very special and sensitive in another way. It is my belief that Nouros was one of them and that the verses of ”Ηouzam mane”*3 give his stigma:

Whoever has a blackened heart, let’s stay together
wander the wastelands and hide ourselves from the world’s gaze.

Nouro´s voice offers consolation.
Rebetiko is a music for consolation.

Vasilis Tsitsanis, another extremely sensitive man, says in a verse of the song “Gipsy, break up the violin”:

I did not come here tonight to amuse myself,
I just came to get consolation…

During the last years before his death and while his duende was counting the last pearls of his life, Tsitsanis used to greet his public by saying, “ala, alania!” but at the same time, he was somewhere else. His customers were dancing “empty” and exhibitionistic zeibekiko dances, but he was somewhere else, because the bridges had been cut and the leaves had left the trees…

*1 duende = New Oxford Dictionary: 1. ghost, evil spirit/2. inspiration, magic, fire – Random house Dictionary: 1. demon, spirit/fascination, magnetism.

No matter if duende is a spirit or a demon it cannot be described and being bottled…


Kostas Ladopoulos (2009)

The sinnful (Η αμαρτωλή)

I've always believed that rebetiko songs (thorax's songs) are, in different ways, sincere confessions of, not only deep love but mainly, masculine weakness...

I give you here a simple and melancholic example of Stavros Kaloumenos (whom we know nothing more than that he lived in the States and recorded there), undet the title "The sinnful".

Here is the text:


I don't want to go to Paradise when I'll die
'cause I know I won't find you there
and then, what Am I going to do?

I'd like to go to Hell, I'm asking for this favour,
'cause I'm going to meet you there, you sinnful, I know it

Yala,

Because you never showed some mercy, during your life,
do a good deed and love me just a bit

Yala,

You sinnful, you're going to burn and melt in Hell's fire.
It's no use, you cruel, if you regret.
I don't care if I melt together with you in Hell
and being with the devils, if I only can see you.

Together with the deads and the devils,
there won't be any difference,
'cause even during my life I was together with a devil, poor me.

Yala,
oples,
Yia sou Stavro!

Here is the song. Enjoy it!


http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/6/1947074/16_Stavros_Kaloumenos_-_I_Amartoli.mp3

Is he or is he not? That΄s the question...

Make a click to this linc in order to see an interesting photo and read an article about it in English.

http://elkibra-blogspot.com/

Rebetiko is a benign bacillus...

Rebetiko is like a benign bacillus. Once you get it - in a right way - you never get rid of it. It angles in your mind and heart and it breeds... The critical point is to avoid to get wedged in a certain group of songs and a narrow point of view. Unfortunately, most people do it. I had a friend who was playing on his guitar exactly the same songs, during a period of 20 years!

"There has been a tendency (and is still actual...) to concentrate on the so-called "Piraeus rebetika", which are perceived by many to be the genuine performances, the "rebetika high" of Gail Holst and others. For them, the music of the Anatolian refugees was merely a pubescent version of what was to follow, rather than a musical and cultural tradition in its own right" (Concepts of Greekness: The recorded Music of Anatolian Greeks after 1922, by Nicholas G. Pappas) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9405EED7123BF933A05751C1A962958260

Nobody knows the exact number of the recorded rebetika but it is for sure that it is bigger than 20.000 songs.
(to be continued)

Τwo new CD's

http://www.mtkontanis-music.com/home.html

"...As a primarily self-taught singer, Mavrothi has been deeply influenced by performers such as Antonios Dalgas and Hafiz Kemal, and also by Byzantine chant. He has studied under some of the most revered contemporary oud players in the world, and when performing combines the emotive phrasing and ornamentation of older players with some of the more modern techniques heard in Greece and Turkey today. The talented musicians featured alongside Mavrothi are a mix of Greeks and Americans who share a strong passion for this music and worked extremely hard to preserve the authenticity of the traditional pieces in the recordings, enriching Mavrothi’s own compositions as well. Lefteris Bournias is one of the most well-known and admired clarinet players in the US and Greece, and his fiery yet subtle playing leaves you wanting more at the end of each of his featured tracks. On violin, Megan Gould shines sweetly, reminding us of how the violin was played nearly a century ago in Greece. The gentle playing of Anastassia Zachariadou on the kanun and Phaedon Sinis on politiki lyra (kemence) are lovely combinations of older and newer styles. On percussion, Timothy Quigley personifies subtlety and sensitivity, playing on a range of traditional instruments..."

Just listen to that!

No matter if you don't like the kind of music I'm writing about, but you still visit this blog, or if you just like the Piraeus bouzouki rebetiko, I give you 3 demonic examples of Mikrasiatiko* songs, in case they would touch you...

1. http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/6/1947074/Mahmouriko%20(Matsa-Peristeri)%20Kanaropoulou.mp3

2. http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/6/1947074/Ta%20dika%20sou%20sfalmata%20(Peristeri)%201946.mp3

Both are Spyros Peristeris compositions (http://www.spectacularopticals.com/Peristeris1.html )
(Please help: is there anybody who can tell me how I can change such long codes to just "here";)

3. http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/6/1947074/Konialis%20%2880aki%29%20Roza%2880AKI%29.mp3 (G. Dragatsis "Ogdontakis")

Εγώ θέλω ψαραδάκι... (I do want a fish salesman)...

• 
  
  Fish salesmen in Athens, 30's
  Photo: from the book ΔΟΥΛΕΙΕΣ ΤΟΥ ΠΟΔΑΡΙΟΥ... , ΝΙΚΟΥ ΜΟΛΟΧΑ, έκδοση του περιοδικού "συλλογές", Aθήνα 1985
  
  http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/6/1947074/Ta%20lefta%20sou%20de%20ta%20thelw.mp3
  
  
  I DON'T WANT YOUR MONEY (P. Tounda), vocal: Roza Eskenazi
  
  I don't want your money, stop loving me.
  I don't want you, I've told you several times, you're a rich mangas*1.
  
  I'm longing for a fish salesman in the market with a pair of scales2* and a teziaki*3.
  When I love such a fine, handsome and brave man, how can I refuse him?
  Cheers to fish sailsmen
  
  I don't want your houses, your welfare and your comforts,
  you can't convince me with your tricks, you're a rich mangas
  
  Cheers to manges
  
  *1 mangas , see post Saturday, April, 12, 2008
  *2 pair of scales, old type of balance (weight) like the one you see at the photo
  *3 teziaki, a small cupboard with a drawer where they put the change