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CD Review
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The Wesleyan Argus, CD Review >>
By Jesse Brenner
Sounds of a pub clank and slide across the bowed strings of a fiddle. A single Turkish darbuka drum calls the gathered to order and sends the tables, chairs, and mugs spinning in a whirlpool of dance. Festivities reach an apex as the Gypsy (Roma) orchestra takes flight upon a flamenco rush of stringed haste, a Spanish sound much obliged to the seeds planted by the Roma many centuries ago.
In fact, a good chunk of Eurasian folk music—from the coasts of Portugal to rugged Rajasthan in Northwest India where the Roma are believed to have originated—is greatly indebted to the Gypsies for rejuvenating and recreating local music traditions over the past millennium. Instead, the sometimes nomadic people of the Roma have been consistently mistreated in their Euroopean host countries.
Veteran Earth-Wheel-Sky Band leader, composer, arranger, guitarist, violist, vocalist, and the personification of Gypsy music Olah Vince considers himself a Gypsy activist both musically and politically. With the geographically diverse sounds represented on Waltz Rromana and the presence of the word “Rrom” [literally: “man”] in every song title on the album Vince might be symbolically reclaiming some of the many European traditions that have benefited from contact with Gypsy musicians over the years.
The pulsating Balkan-style flamenco of “Azija Rromansa” is bowled over by the charge of a train whistle and chromatically ascending chordal strums bursting into the call-response abandon of “Sae Rroma, Ando Them (All the People in the World).” The dulcimer-like cimbalom, gently plucked by Kurina Michael, behind bones and bells expanding the enchanted ambiance, all softly blended as the listener cycles through the dizzying maze of musical rooms; each room faintly reminiscent of the last but with furniture reorganized and sundry color schemes altering moods. Such is the nature of this album, and as each subsequent tune ensues to ensnare your ear you’ll certainly still be humming previous tracks to yourself.
Finally, a chance to take an aural seat on track four, “Music Rroman.” Minor-key arpeggios and light waves of harmonics swirl like colored stardust in a loose breeze below the speckled ceiling of the zodiac above, attachments to time and space fading. Vince’s beguiling Andalusian vocals seem to plead to the heavens with a feeling of bittersweet grief and the stop-start pace characteristic of even the mellowest Gypsy tunes.
The blissful gloom lifts, a slow dance dispersing the haze with a relaxed march that gains steam until the conclusion of “Dance Rromalen” spins into flamenco form once more, beseeched by wistfully wandering violin. At last, we have returned to India, paying homage to the roots of the Roma on “India Rroma,” where we immediately detect scents of Vedic chants and sitar effects on the guitar, echoed by Varga Karlo’s purring fiddle. Another march-like procession of instrumentalism commences, adding layers of sound and tempo throughout this journey under the gaping skies of the open road. Vince grooves on his sitar-guitar, moved along by hoppy darbuka beats courtesy of Toplica Ramiz, the song ushered out by a musical ohm.
The wistful and melancholy sounds of tango and Portuguese fado can be heard on the introduction to “Rroma Adagio Sempre,” but footsteps on the pavement catalyze a reprise of the frenetic pace heard earlier on the album. A smoke-filled summer wind sweeps in the acclaimed trumpeting of Boban Markovic on “Vranje-Rromans”, resonances of a Spanish matador in his bursts of brass, Kurina Ferene’s bowed double-bass as heavy as the sweltering air. “A#-Rromans” rounds out the album with a surprisingly stately piece, a slice of poignant sorrow. But for everything before and after, we shall do as requested by the band in the liner notes: “Listen to this music, dance, shout, be Gypsy, be free…”
04/23/04 >> go there
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