|
|
 |
Feature
|
| Click Here to go back. |
Pittsburgh Live, Feature >>
Borders weigh heavily on the mind of Ori Kaplan, co-founder of the Brooklyn-based band Balkan Beat Box. Musical borders, political borders -- to him, they're one and the same. They're all artificial, man-made, designed to separate.
This isn't some hippie band's wild-eyed fantasy, either. They don't just talk the talk -- it takes guts to bring a Palestinian rapper onstage as a guest in Jerusalem, as they've done in the past.
Balkan Beat Box is coming to the Johnstown FolkFest this weekend after performing shows Aug. 10 and 11 in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
"It's pretty crazy right now," says Kaplan, on the phone at his parents' house -- out of rocket range in Tel Aviv -- during a particularly bloody few days in the fighting. "There's a war going on. Everybody canceled. All the other bands from abroad -- Depeche Mode, Blonde Redhead -- but we're here. We're performing tonight (Aug. 10) and will be tomorrow in Jerusalem. Even though the mood is depressed, and shocked maybe. ... Our show might be some relief from the week."
The name Balkan Beat Box is a little misleading -- if the band's music is based on anything, it's the folk and pop music Kaplan and Tamir Muskat grew up with in Israel. But they've absorbed so much in the melting pot of New York City and elsewhere, that no three-word name would really sum them up.
"I describe it as 'Mediterranean dancehall,'" Kaplan says. "Some people describe it as Balkan-inspired electronic urban folk, with hip-hop beats." Kaplan says the group includes singers, performers and influences from North Africa and the Middle East to Greece and the lower Balkan countries."
Kaplan was born in the small Israeli city of Jaffa, picking up clarinet at an early age and listening to Egyptian pop, Russian and Moroccan music on the radio. He rebelled by refusing to learn to read classical music.
Instead, Kaplan learned to play klezmer -- high-spirited Eastern European Jewish dance music -- by ear. Later, he was transfixed by transatlantic currents of jazz, rock and industrial music.
Muskat's mother was Romanian, and his father had a music school. His strange, quixotic musical career started early -- he gained notoriety both as a punk-rock drummer, and produced Mediterranean singers in his basement at age 18. By 19, he was playing with the biggest rock bands in Israel. But to reach the next level, you have to go to the States.
With Balkan Beat Box, putting all this together is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing. If you can't find the connecting piece, you have to make your own.
"It really took the sum of who we are, and our experiences," Kaplan says. "Sometimes it comes from the computer, starting with a beat, and we add melodies and stuff. Sometimes it's a singer, singing a capella and we build an arrangement around it. It can take a month to grow, or just one day."
The music is built from traditional forms and instruments, but it feels like a postmodern pastiche of elements both newfangled and eternal. And even though traditional folk musicians often jealously guard the purity of their craft, Kaplan says they've always responded positively to the often-bizarre juxtapositions of Balkan Beat Box.
"They feel like it's a hybrid -- not abusing the form," he says. "We're not just trying to emulate -- we actually play everything, and we study how to play it, because it's part of who we are. It's done with 'extreme instrumentalism,' knowledge and care."
The band's shows tend to be euphoric, exhausting two- to three-hour circuses, with a core of six to 10 musicians.
"If we discover a special local artist ... in Sweden, we had an Iranian rapper. In France, we had a Moroccan Gnawa musician. We have Bulgarian singers sometimes. (In front of) 6,000 people in Switzerland, we had Gypsy dancers from Transylvania," Kaplan says.
But offstage, the crowds seem to have lots in common, whether they're in Chicago, Geneva or Jerusalem.
"If you film it, it looks like any show in Switzerland -- hundreds of people having a great time, drinking, jumping like maniacs, rejoicing," says Kaplan.
Sometimes, this is all it takes to foster a little cross-border brotherhood. They figure that when the politicians and agitators aren't interested, it's at least worth a shot. So doing things like bringing a Palestinian hip-hop group onstage in Jerusalem aren't meant as provocations.
"People see that, and they're like, 'Wow, they're not fighting!' It gives people hope -- maybe I should talk to my Palestinian neighbor. Maybe I should not hate this or that, propagate this thing that's going on, the vicious cycle that's so quick to erupt."
"Sure it's a utopian vision, but hell, why not?" 08/31/06 >> go there
|
| Click Here to go back. |
|
 |
|
|
|
