MAHALA RAI BANDA

The latest discovery by the Belgian producers who brought us Taraf de Haidouks 15 years ago and later the Macedonian brass band Kocani Orkestar is called Mahala Rai Banda. Genuine "all stars" Gypsy band includes players from the rural villages and Bucharest ghettos, and combines virtuoso violin playing, machine gun solos executed by master cymbalom players and powered by a funky rhythm section.

When Belgian musician and producer Michel Winter traveled to Romania in 1990 to select gypsy musicians for the first ever touring lautari band Taraf de Haidouks, he certainly wasn't aware that his snowball will turn into an avalanche. WOMAD audiences were learning about the exciting unknown music from the other end of Europe - and many of them got hooked forever. But in their homeland, Romanian gypsy musicians remained segregated in their ghettos. For Taraf, it took 10 years of international touring to give their first concert in Romania in a tiny Bucharest theatre. But neglect from local audiences doesn't mean lack of vitality. The Romanian gypsy community is flaming with new ideas. The traditional instruments cymbalom and violin ale coupled with Turkish rhythms of darbouka, Gypsy music draws on oriental flavour, village musicians are encouraged to play with city dance bands.
The brightest hope in this vibrant musical landscape is Mahala Rai Banda, a discovery made by the same team that gave you Taraf de Haidouks and Kocani Orkestar. Last year, Banda recorded their debut CD and mixed it in collaboration with German electrogypsy whiz Shantel. They toured extensively and became one of the main attraction of the Womex music fair in Essen, Germany. Michel Winter from the Divano Production explains the band's name:
Mahala is the common name gypsies use to designate the areas where they form the majority of the population, and which sometimes develop into small towns.
Rai is a word of Arab origin borrowed by the Roma tribes that travelled through Persia and Egypt and whose migration ended in Romania in the plain of Walachia. These generations of gypsy musicians (lautari) are considered to be aristocracy among gypsies and the term rai designates someone whose authority or know-how is recognized by all.
Banda designates an orchestra composed of various instruments (violin, trumpet, saxophone, cymbalom, percussion instruments, accordion.) which belongs to no particular genre. It is neither a fanfare nor a folk band, but can be either according to circumstance. Traditional music from the countryside meets the radically modernist style of gypsy music from Bucharest, oriental ornamentation, modern rhythms and the more complex rhythms from the Balkans, and harmonies from the Banat of Moldavia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania and Turkey.
Through its music, Mahala Rai Banda combines the oral culture of the gypsy lautari musicians and the rigor of the military fanfares in which the older members of the group originally played.

Discography:
Mahala Rai Banda / Crammed / 2004

Personnel:
Aurel Ionita - violin, voice
Sorin Constantin - voice, clarinet
Bosnea Aurel -baritone
Oprica Viorel - trumpet
Viorel Gavrila - trumpet
Marian Enache - accordion
Mihail Enache - taraban
Trofin Eugene - tuba
Dinu Marian - drums

Ticket office:
Palác Akropolis (Kubelíkova 27, Praha 3)
Radost CD-Video (Bělehradská 120, Praha2)
Ticketpro
Ticketstream
Tickets in TICKETSTREAM network, www.ticketstream.cz, tel.: +420 224 263 049, e-mail: ticket@ticketstream.cz.
can be bought on-line and printed on your own printer at home!

Web:
www.crammed.be
www.divanoprod.com

Music:
Colindat

Video:
Live in Clejani

Downloads:

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