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Concert Preview: Sextet brings romance and passion
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Tucson Citizen, Concert Preview: Sextet brings romance and passion >>
There is much local cheering and jumping around over the news that Les Yeux Noir will bring its boisterous gypsy jazz to the Berger Center, 1200 W. Speedway Blvd., for an 8 p.m. performance on Saturday.
The sextet of French musicians packed the place on its last visit to the Baked Apple. Word gets around.
The sound of Les Yeux Noir (The Black Eyes) is filled with the romance and passion of Paris cabaret life.
While all the players are relatively young, they are devoted to the central European roots music of the Yiddissh and Slavic wanderers whose grief inspired the songs.
Such a volatile combination of emotions and history gives this group's performances an unforgettable intensity.
Just as the blues has an immediate connection to the feet and heart, so does this European roots music laced with minor chords and campfire magic.
As one writer described it, "a song starts slowly, moodily, before the instruments gather, merging new melodies and manic rhythms until the music snaps, losing all control."
That's the part we like, when the music snaps and the band loses all control.
Alas, there won't be any cabaret tables or gypsy campfires at the Berger Center. But the foot-tapping should be thunderous.
Les Yeux Noir's founding brothers, Eric and Oliver are classically trained violinists who freely admit that as children they studied proper violin only to please their parents.
"It was their dream, so we began playing classical music for 15 years," said Oliver in English that's a little bit tumbled.
But these brothers, as they dutifully went to those violin lessons, were also growing up in Paris, a city famous for its distractions of a nonclassical nature.
In their teen years the boys discovered gypsy bands and heard the music of their own future.
It sounded like "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" but with a Yiddish beat. They took to playing in cabarets with klezmer bands.
"Music is language, really. It's a passport for us. It's not traditional music. We play our music like we would play rock music," Oliver continued, explaining that even when a piece begins with an old traditional melody, the rock 'n' roll urgency with which they play it aims straight for the overheated embrace of today's pop culture crowd. 05/08/03
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