Gypsy Caravan

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Last night (October 13, 2001), the World Music Institute in New York
City (http://www.worldmusic.org/) presented a "Gypsy Caravan" that
brought together Roma musicians from around the world. It was a
testimony to a creativity that oppression cannot extinguish, even
under mounting adversities today.

The excellent program notes consisted of a brief history of the Roma
people by scholar Ian Hancock (Roma himself) and an introduction to
their music by Carol Silverman, who has been involved with Roma music
and culture for over twenty years.

Hancock explains that the term Gypsy originates from the perception
in Europe during the late Middle Ages that these nomadic peoples came
from Egypt. In the 15th century, James the Fifth of Scotland made a
treaty with a local Roma leader pledging to recover "Little Egypt"
for them (an old name for Epirus on the Greek-Albanian coast.)

In actuality, the Roma did come from the East but from a much further
distance than Egypt. They are ethnically rooted in India and came
together originally as a military caste (Kshatriya) that was
mobilized against Islamic attacks in the 11th century. In battles
that lasted throughout the century, these Rajput soldiers were
eventually routed by the Islamic invaders. How and why exactly is not
known, but evidence suggests that the defeated Hindu soldiers made
their way West over a 250 year period. By the time they reached the
Byzantine Empire, they had developed a distinct Romani ethnicity and
language.

As a nomadic people, they developed occupations that befitted their
footloose character. Tools had to be kept simple and portable. This
meant that blacksmithing and iron working became popular, as did
horse-raising. The latter trade has evolved into used car dealing in
the most recent past. Above all, the Roma became skilled musicians.
Although there are Gypsy musicians everywhere in the world, it is
important to note that there is no such thing as "Gypsy music". In
every region where they sank semi-permanent roots, they tended to
assimilate local styles.

The members of Maharaja, the first group to perform, come from the
Thar Desert in Rajasthan, northwest India. Some members of the group
appeared in the documentary on Gypsy music titled "Latcho Drom," an
excellent introduction that can be found in most video rental stores.

Strictly speaking, these musicians are not Roma at all, but are just
nomadic musicians whom the British colonists applied the term to, in
view of their similarity to authentic Roma peoples in the West.
Whatever the ethnic connections, they are Gypsy in spirit and clearly
fit in with the eclectic nature of this kind of music-making. As
members of the Langa ("song giver"), Manghaniyar and Sapera groups,
these Muslim musicians perform at births, weddings and funerals like
their Roma counterparts in the West. (A Hungarian proverb says, "Give
a Hungarian a glass of water and a Gypsy fiddler and he will become
completely drunk.")

Maharaja's compositions reflect various sources, including Indian
film music, Sufi devotional music such as the kind that Nusrat Fateh
Ali Khan made popular and rural folk music.

Esma Redzepova and Ensemble followed Maharaja. Although I have been
following Roma music for many years now, this was the first time I
had heard of her. Esma is considered the most gifted singer of Roma
ancestry in the world and was crowned "Queen of Romani Music" by the
World Romani Congress in Indian in 1976.

Born in 1945 in Macedonia, she is the first Balkan Rom musician (male
or female) to achieve success in the commercial non-Rom world, the
first to record in the Romani language and the first Macedonian woman
(Rom or non-Rom) to perform on television. Commercial success has
allowed her to take on projects that advance the cultural and
survival goals of her people.

Over the past 10 years, she has been building a "Home of Humanity and
Museum of Romani Music" which includes an archive, theater, recording
studio and clinic for underserved populations. She has also turned
her home into a huge family/musical troupe of 40 adopted boys, mostly
Roma. There they undergo an intense musical training that emphasizes
her eclectic brand of internationalism. They sing in over fifteen
languages, including all the Balkan and East European languages, plus
Hebrew, German and Hindi. Among the songs on "Esma's Dream," that I
purchased last night, is Hava Nagila, a song performed at Jewish
weddings.

Esma, who bears a striking resemblance to the comedian Roseanne has
one of the most extraordinary voices I have ever heard in my life. It
evokes the kind of intensity and control of the late Egyptian
superstar Oum Khalsoun, but with a feel for Balkan folk-dance styles.

(http://live.paleo.ch/home/home29/Direct/Photos_concerts/index.php?Pag
e_ID=423)

Ironically, in light of all the Serbophobic prejudices whipped up in
the Western press over the past 10 years or so, the program notes
state that Esma and her ensemble moved to Belgrade in 1961 "to escape
prejudice against the Roma in the music industry."

(One other interesting question related to this is the degree to
which state socialism helped to keep alive folk traditions despite
assimilationist tendencies in the bureaucracy. Most elements of the
anti-Communist middle-class in the USA would never dream of thanking
the CP for funding institutions like the Bulgarian Radio Woman's
Chorus, etc., but CP support was critical. Now that socialism has
disappeared from Eastern Europe, one can predict with some degree of
rueful certainty that folk traditions will rapidly give way to Back
Street Boys, Britney Spears and other barbarian influences.)

The third group to take the stage was Fanfare Ciocarlia, a Gypsy
brass band from Romania that continues to play at weddings, baptisms
and funerals. Not only does their music convey their humble roots, so
does their appearance. When they took the stage, these swarthy,
plain-dressed men looked just like those who drive livery cabs or
operate hot-dog stands in New York City.

(http://www.worldmusicportal.com/Artists/European/Romanian/fanfarecioc
arlia1.htm)

Despite the fact that the concert was commemorating the victims of
9/11, I doubt that members of the band could get close to the site
without being accosted by cops.

Fanfare Ciocarlia first achieved some fame after being heard on the
sound track of Emil Kusturica's "Underground." As is typically the
case for Romanian Gypsy musicians, they play for both Rom and non-Rom
audiences. Before WWII, such groups played for and with Jews.
Ciocarlia's songs and dances evoke both Klezmer music and Romanian
village dance music of the kind that found its way into Enesco and
Bartok's classical compositions. In addition to traditional village
music, their repertoire includes genres from all over the world,
including Argentine Tango.

The Gypsy brass bands, like Balkan brass bands in general, probably
are related to the Ottoman military 'mehter' bands that were banned
in the 1830s. Local Rom musicians absorbed Turkish music in this
period when Greeks from Constantinople ruled Romania. Since the fall
of communism, bands such as Fanfare Ciocarlia have turned more and
more to Turkish influences of the Roma of the southern Balkans.
Improvised solos follow melodies in Turkish-influenced harmonies, and
songs are sung in the Roma or Romanian language. The music is
irresistible.

The last group to perform was the Antonio El Pipa Flamenco Ensemble
from Andalucia, Spain.

(http://www.flamenco-world.com/artists/elpipa/pipa.htm)

Flamenco is probably the Rom musical form most familiar to
Westerners. Although its exact origins are a matter of some scholarly
debate, there is no question that Gitanos (Spanish Roma) played a
major role in its inception and subsequent development. Basically, it
is a mixture of Roma styles imported from the East, Moorish (Arab)
and Sephardic (Jewish) music and Spanish folk music.

This synthesis began in the 15th century, shortly after the Gitanos
arrived from North Africa. As Carol Silverman puts it most
eloquently:

"By the seventeenth century, Gitanos were part of a large underclass
which included runaway slaves, smugglers, vagabonds, outcasts, and
Moorish peasants and Jews hiding from expulsion and the Inquisition.
They were poor, unemployed, rowdy, and targeted by many severe
government edicts. Gitanos congregated in the urban centers of
Andalucia, including Seville (the neighborhood Triana), Cadiz, Jerez
de la Frontera, Moron de la Frontera, and Utrera. The places where
flamenco arose reflect its lower class social position; slums,
ghettos, taverns, penitentiaries, inns, bordellos, and smuggling
routes."

In other words, the birth of Flamenco (and Tango) from the underclass
helps to explain its grandeur.

Web Sites dedicated to Roma culture, books, human rights:

www.voiceofroma.org
www.rroma.org
www.romnews.com
www.geocities.com/~patrin/patrin.htm
www.dmoz.org/Society/Ethnicity/Romani/
www.romani.org/
www.radio.cz/roma/
www.perso.wanadoo.fr/balval/
www.romapage.c3.hu/
www.unionromani.org/
www.decani.yunet.com/gypsies.html
www.americangypsy.com
www.gypsyloresociety.org/


--
Louis Proyect, lnp3@xxxxxxxxx on 10/14/2001

Marxism list: http://www.marxmail.org


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