Hearing the flute on tracks 4 & 11, I thought “oh… pan flute, no wonder in Romania”. Like–no way you could do that on a whistle, right?
Then I spotted the flautist is pictured in the photo below (up and left)… and it’s a whistle he holds.
Btw the Great Censor and Marketing VP went through the translation with its Big Scissors:
“Taraf” really means “Band”, but Haiduk a Robin Hood style of popular romanian brigand
By all means, get this essential sample of true Eastern Europe Gypsy music.
(This esp. if you thought ITM to be the fastest possible music in Europe trad’. Then tell me which beats are pan flute, and which whistle… )
Well, I have three of their albums but this isn’t one of them. This is one of the most incredible bands you are ever likely to hear, period, not just the most incredicble Gypsy band. The tension between the uncompromisingly ill-tempered scales favoured by the fiddlers and singers and the inevitably well-tempered guitar accompaniment is surprisingly effective. I missed the chance to see them live a week ago and will long regret it.
I wouldn’t draw conclusions too quickly from the cover photo about the flute being used on the album. It wouldn’t surprise me if he plays several. That said, these people can get the most extraordinary sounds out of any instrument so I wouldn’t discount their making fipple flutes sound like pan pipes.
If you haven’t heard this band, what are you waiting for?
It’s a gig with other gypsies from Bulgaria, Turkey, Hungary so it ads to what you know a couple clarinets, a sax, some percussions (darbuka, tapan) and a full brass section, complete with a trumpet and four tubas!
Also, this is a public, but technically superb recording, so you really get the full taste of each instrument. I don’t know how the main fiddler manages to screech his bow in such a distinctly dissonant yet melodic way! I don’t know… maybe a second bow played dry without collophane, or does he “slide” it lengthwise on the strings? Amazing…
I just ordered a couple of Taraf de Haidouks CDs, as I am very curious. Thanks for the tip! I first got into Balkan music through the Le Mystere de Voix Bulgare CDs. I saw the women’s choir on tour a couple of times (once in a large church), and I must say that was one of the most amazing and powerful musical experience in my life. Then there are few musicians around here playing Hungarian/Bulgarian/Romanian stuff on a multitude instruments that seem harder to pronounce than to master.
The Taraf de Haidouks albums that have received most critical acclaim are Honourable Brigands, Magic Horses and Evil Eye which is my favourite and their breakthrough self-titled album subtitled Musique des Tsiganes de Roumanie both on Crammed Discs (from memory.) These are just the band without guest artists.
While we’re in the Balkans, amongst the dozens of artists worth checking out there is one other standout group in my opinion, the Hungarian group Musikas and their singer Marta Sebesteyen. They play music gathered Bartock style in the field from all over Southern Hungary and Transylvania and have made recordings of Jewish and Serbian as well as ethnic Hungarian styles. Their recording of Transylvanian Jewish music, learnt largely from Gypsies who played whatever repertoire suited the gig they were doing, is likely to be our only record of this vibrant and beautiful music because, as I understand it, not a single Transylvanian Jewish professional musican survived the Holocaust and the music lived on only in the hands of Gypsies and the memories of the few Jewish non-musicans who did survive. Check out Maramaros: the Lost Jewish Music of Transylvania, The Bartock Album consisting of cylinder recordings by Bartock of ethnic songs back to back with Musikas’ hi fi reworkings of the same songs, and Sebesteyen’s self-titled album.
During the early eighties there was a group called Makam es Kolinda, they recorded in france [Ihave the lp if I dig around] they were great too, certainly comparable to Musikas. I also remember seeing a brilliant tv documentary about Taraf des Haidouks, during another life I suppose, long ago.
I picked up this CD at the library and just had to bump this thread back up. Look for it, It’s amazing.
My first reaction wasn’t very positive but the more I listened to it the more it grew on me. These guys are incredible musicians. The whistle player (I play panpipes and those aren’t panpipes!) does things that border on the impossible. He can stretch a single note in the midst of sheer musical chaos to express a huge swath of emotion.
My kids also love it. It has become the favorite car CD lately and is my daughters favorite “dancing” music. She’s 4 1\2 so it’s like some kind of pre-schooler interpretive dance. Good reason to have a video camera to embarass her in her teen years.
If you are the least bit curious, buy it or borrow it. You won’t be disappointed!
I know a local U. piper and whistler, who gigged with this Taraf in Brittany at a music festival, maybe Lorient.
He told me he saw the trick for that incredibly screechy fiddle sound one hears on some tracks: they remove the last string, hold with the left hand on the fiddle table. I didn’t get where the bow strikes exactly then…
(How would I know? seems I don’t need no stinkin’ trick to get that sort of sound from a violin anyway )
Correcting: to do this, you have to hold the instrument solely with your chin and elbow. So it’s violin, not fiddle
Martin also said that, after a dinner shared with the Taraf (the whole clan, with the kids from two years up running around, and missing but the cattle and poultry…) one of them wouldn’t give back a Frenchman’s violin he borowed to try it out, then saying with a great smile at the end of the meal it was his from the start. They had to call the organizer to smooth this out…
Another good ornament on the violin or fiddle is the ‘krect’ (moan) it’s used in Roma and in Jewish music. Many of the there ornaments originated in Eastern Europe.
One the pieces done by Abe Schwartz is the Romanian Doyna. it is a showpiece with lots of ornaments and originally came from gypsy (Roma) music.
Since this thread appeared I bought the CD Zoob recommended. Great, but still not as good as their first two albums alone. Honourable Brigands is the single best CD the’ve done IMO. Of course, once you’ve got the bug you’ll want them all.
Wombly:
Glad you’re listening as I wanted to relate something that happened at the concert.
The first half was a pretty good slug of music as Bireli is a phenom, so it could be considered a whole show in itself.
The haidouks came out for second half and blazed away. To me, as a lifelong musician, it was truly a festival of melody, harmony, rhythms, etc. The other Weekender loved it too.
BUT, for only about the second time in my life that I can remember, at least 25% of the audience left between midway and the end. My personal theory is they just couldn’t take it, it was too overwhelming. You can’t say it was boring, but strange to many ears yes. Also, perhaps some came for the jazz of Bireli. And to be fair, it was a Sunday night and a long concert. Pricey tix though so presumably you had to want to be there.
But it was unfathomable for me, as a music lover, to walk away from these guys.
This was your seeming well-heeled open-minded Berkeley crowd (and quite used to eclectic performers in the Cal Performances series) and yet they left! Those who stayed gave em a standing ovation etc etc and actually about five players snuck back onstage for an unplanned encore after about half of the crowd had left the seating. Those remaining, including us, rushed downfront to get closer and people were clapping and dancing etc etc.
My attitude is that I have never heard anything like them and don’t expect to again really, except on records or returning to another concert. I was in complete awe of all of them. I don’t say that very often about anyone.
Thanks for sharing that, Weeks. It’s an interesting but slightly disturbing story.
I suppose there’s no way you can be indifferent to the Taraf de Haidouks. Their sound is dissonant—those ancient scales against those compromise-tuned rhythm instruments. Also, they are really in-your-face. The music doesn’t just lap over you until you start to get the point; it hits you with all the directness of a head butt. Perhaps that was just too much for some people with no prior exposure.
Over a year on and I’m still kicking myself for missing them. It’s not as though I didn’t know either. A friend who I’d introduced to the band a few years earlier emailed me maybe 6 weeks in advance suggesting we make a night of it. Immediately I thought that was great idea but I was just beginning to write the draft of a book and I just lost track of her suggestion. When I write seriously I get obsessive. 6 weeks on I was chatting with friends in a record shop in Sydney. One of them said how good the Taraf had been and I realised that I’d not only missed them, I hadn’t even replied to my friend’s email. Oh well, it’s a pity but I can’t write well any other way.
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tubas!
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