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Rating: "Popular music" my friend Samuel, the clarinetist, used to say, "is simply improvisation on some repeating themes". Samuel, 19 years old, is 100% French, graduated from the conservatory and theoretically, given his talent and young age, was headed for a classical or jazz career. But one day, Samuel encountered Alexis, a Franco-Polish Jewish accordionist, and in that moment klezmer music entered his life and never left. Now Samuel could improvise on something overwhelming and heartrending at the same time, and he joined a group of Jews in Paris who come from every corner of the world to play with his clarinet the Yiddish music.
The klezmer tradition doesn’t belong to any specific country because it belongs to everyone, it has influences coming from everywhere and this is its strength. Balkan music, among the folk music, is one of the most mixed, like the people who inhabit there, so much so that Macedonia was called that since the times of Alexander the Great because it designated a mixture of peoples and races. And if it worked as well as it does for sounds, we’d be golden: gypsy rhythms, jazz manouche (the one played by gypsies), Arabic music, Armenian, Serbian, Bosnian, Greek, Turkish sounds, Slavic and Russian melodies intertwine. The result is surprisingly cohesive, overwhelming, melancholic and in one word irresistible. Balkan music has become, among European folk music, the most famous and loved, especially by the young audience, thanks to the success of Emir Kusturica's films which made this music not only the soundtrack of his films but his world. A crazy world made of gypsies, drunkards, vagabonds, all full of life and free. This perhaps gives us a bit of a sense of nostalgia, from when we were poor, nomadic, and without too many problems.
The connection between Kusturica and Balkan music goes through Goran Bragovic, who is one of the most famous interpreters and innovators of his folk music: before they decided to stop speaking, there were Kusturica, Bragovic, and the Kocani Orkestar, the brass band accompanying the artist.
It’s true, seen from the outside they seem like a group of drunk gypsies, who travel the world with percussion, brass, and so much energy (and play everything standing up), and they also are, but they are exceptional musicians, some of them combine instinct with true jazz training, but what matters most, they are such a joy for your ears.
The Kocani Orkestar takes the stage at Cascina Monluè at ten, one after the other, playing, and then they kick off one of their wild pieces, in rhythm. The Milanese audience is about the worst an artist can face, as still and cold as it is, but they don’t give up. Lined up on stage, with a trumpet, trombone, sax, tapan (a special double-headed drum), and djambé, they try out with an sinuous Arabic music, and even the ladies begin to move their hips. They roll out one piece after another, imperturbable, never getting tired, and finally they perform a brass gallop launched at a crazy speed, and even the worst begin to dance, to twirl and they have achieved their goal, freeing us. It’s not over yet: defying the efficient North Italian service made of perfect lights and sounds and respect for schedules, our heroes come down from the stage and start playing among the people, who follow them dancing, like the rats with the Pied Piper. Nothing seems to tire them out, they might continue all night and they even give us a treat: "Miserlou" in a gypsy version. And at that moment, I thought, "oh yes, in the end it’s a piece of yours". Rather, it’s ours. Everything people dance and sing so spontaneously and playfully is our heritage.
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