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

Angels...

The etching you see is made by Takis Sideris and is one of those which decorated the first edition of Elias Petropoulos "Ρεμπέτικα τραγούδια" (Rebetiko songs), 1968. The painter has drawn an angel passing behind the musicians. Sideris was right. The Spanish talk about "duende", a demonic dark power which gets in the flamenco composers and singers and puts fire on them. A fire which imparts itself to the public. Myself, as a Greek, I see angels instead of duende. No matter if we believe or not in such creatures, I need something that can help me understand the demonic talent of the majority of rebetiko composers. I believe that they did not know how talented they were. I don't want to be misunderstood. I mean that Dimitris Atraidis, for example, was much greater as a composer and singer than what he possibly believed. I have the same opinion about Vasilis Tsitsanis, though he knew it since his youth. But he was much more talented than he believed.

I am talking about that power which forced some of them and turned them into life's onlookers. Something that took them away to other landscapes, tore at their bowels and gave them inspiration. Concerning angels, I am not talking about tender and dumpy small angels, like those on Renaissance paintings. I mean hard, stern Byzantine angels, like those who looked strictly at us from the decorated church walls when we were kids.

I am talking about creative angels who do not indulge and whom cannot cheat. Angels demanding your marrow instead of giving their grace.

I am talking about angels of different sorts, shapes and sizes. Small and frothy but even bulky and big as jet planes. Angels who can fly noiselessly through grass and others who can make the night look darker when they fly in front of the moon.

I am referring to dudes and tough angels with big mustaches, like those who held George Batis every time he came into the recording studio, trembling and "high" from smoking hash,

about angels carrying bellows instead of growing the fire which Markos Vamvakaris bore in his thorax,

about transparent angels blessing the voice of the moist and melancholic Stella Haskil, painting it with soft and smooth colours,

about crowds of angels and nightingales jostling one another inside Dalga's and Stratos Payoumidzis's throats,

about old aged angels, wet from sea water who stretched Marika Papagika's vocal cords so that original wax records get damaged,

about Asia Minor angels who blew in the voice of Vangelakis Sofroniou,

about the wooden figurhead angel who sunk in the waves of Dimitris Atraidis voice, when he sung Ousak Mane "How many enemies look like trustfy friends, with lips of sugar and a poisonous heart"...

about feminine, sensual angels who lifted on their wings Rita Abadzi's fragile voice and Roza Eskenazy's iron voice,

about twenty small angels sitting on the silver fingers of Stelios Chrysinis and Kostas Karipis ,

about two luminous angels living in Giannis Dragatsi's (Ogdontakis) and Dimitris Semsis's (Salonikios) violins,

about the ephemeral, sui generis and strict angel who was fluttering in Vangelis Papazoglou's proud heart, whispering "hurry upp, the chosen ones die faster",

about a Mount Athos angel who fought against Nouros's demonic duende,

about provincial angels who pushed Daisy Stavropoulou's masculine voice and Georgia Mittaki's weedy one,

about bronze angels who flew over and behind Stelios Keromytis motorbike which had a lot of small Greek flags,

about the colourful and demonic angel who held a semi-transparent veil between the world and the inaccessible Vasilis Tsitsanis plaguing and enlightening him and,

about so many other angels sitting on violins, ouds, cumbus, santouris, accordions, guitars, bouzoukis and the small baglamas.

Angels who burst out laughing at blockheaded dictators and other foolish human beings, angels who felt disgust when rebetiko started being false. At the end they could not carry on, they formed squadrons and flew away, expecting new and better times. They will come back to plague, turn on new lights and blow stormy winds of creation...

(Βut) my position is "tragic"...

from Paul McCartney's song "Honey Pie"

Writing about rebetiko, in the way I do, is like murdering your time. It is like believing that you can meet a giraffe in your bathroom or a rhinoceros under your pillow. People looking into blogs are mostly young and focusing on other things. What makes things worse is that I mostly write about Mikrasiatiko. This era is more or less "unknown" though I believe that in time will be more and more discovered. Drawing parallels between the 30's and our time is also considered to be peculiar. I presume that it makes young people irritated, because they cannot still understand. Others who are more open to such but not interested of rebetiko, are getting frustrated so, "my position is tragic"...

The whole thing reminds me of a short and very advanced TV-advertisement for the Swedish cars SAAB.
We see a theater stage exactly the moment when the red curtains are drawn. We hear somebody applauding. The camera turns and we see only one human being, a young man dressed in tails, standing and showing his appreciation for the play. The scen is getting freezed and the slogan is, "SAAb has a few clients but very special ones..."

Ending this post, I wonder why I'm writing it... Am I claiming that there is no communication? No! I believe that we're getting borned alone and we're dying alone. Notning tragic in that but we are alone even when we commit suicide together with the one we love, as the couple Coestler(Arthur Coestler) did when they decided to die together holding each others hands in a hotell room.
On the other hand I have accepted J.L. Baudrillard's words "Why do we need to talk when we can communicate?"... And further on, en insect flying over a flower, does not need any special "communication, it just takes care of itself. The same thing do two zebras in love,when they run parallelly among thousands of others.Then, there is no special reason to be anxious, worrying, sad.
Today it is the 25th of March, it is a sunny Sunday, the sun came upp at 05:08 and will go down at 19:37. I'm pleased and happy by "οράν φάος ηελίειο" (Homeric language meaning, being able to see the sunlight, in other words, to be alive...