Crossroads
Traditional
A
seductive, serene, almost vocal sound, like a clarinet on sparkling, spaciously-recorded swirl and atmosphere, it was
the verge of tears – the Armenian duduk. Lost released in Turkey in the 1970s and reissued by Traditional
Songs From Eden sees it in the masterful hands of Gevorg Crossroads back in 1998.
ORLD
Dabaghyan, not in the traditional context, accompanied
by a second duduk providing a drone, but surrounded by
A striking recent Traditional Crossroads release comes from
W the Komitas String Quartet in heart-rending
the label’s shelf of klezmer albums. For Midnight
arrangements by Vache Sharafyan of Armenian
Prayer Joel Rubin has put together an all-star
folk tunes collected at the beginning of the 20th
ensemble – his own hot clarinet plus two violins,
century by ethnomusicologist, composer and
accordion, trumpet, bass, and the arpeggiating
priest Komitas Vardapet, Armenia’s equivalent of
skitter of two forms of hammered dulcimer, the
Béla Bartók or Ralph Vaughan Williams.
pedal-equipped cimbalom and smaller tsimbl
– to make a big-band sound in an elegantly-
Perhaps that makes it sound like an academic balanced mix of the energetic dance music of the
or classical kind of thing, but this is an album klezmorim repertoire and the moving nigunim
that, once heard, is likely to have the same melodies of the hasidic movement.
effect on people as do Vaughan Williams’s
Fantasia On A Theme By Thomas Tallis or The
Gevorg Dabaghyan
One of the members of the Joel Rubin Ensemble,
Lark Ascending. Lost Songs From Eden
showing the brilliance and versatility that
Traditional Crossroads
make him a world leader on his instrument, is
Dabaghyan is the leader of the Armenian
CD4335
Hungarian Roma cimbalist Kálmán Balogh. A new
traditional instruments group the Shoghaken release on TC is a Bavarian Radio recording of
Ensemble, whose albums, together with the a set by his Gypsy Cimbalom Band, which isn’t
most substantial collection of Armenian music band of cimbaloms but a line-up of cimbalom,
(including 1914 recordings of Komitas himself sax, trumpet, violin, guitar and bass. There’s
singing folksongs) to be found on any non- plenty of virtuosic playing, particularly the high-
Armenian label, are also on the Traditional speed dazzle of Balogh’s flying beaters, but
Crossroads label, which is based in New York their versions of material including Roma song
and headed by Armenian-American violinist, melodies, Bulgarian, Macedonian and Romanian
clarinettist and RCA archive audio restoration dance tunes and a repossessed Brahms’s
producer Harold Hagopian. Fifth Hungarian Dance show fine musicianly
The present-day and historic music of
communication and lightness of touch.
Armenia’s neighbour Turkey is also well
Richard Hagopian &
There are plenty more doors opening on richly-
represented on Traditional Crossroads. Label
Omar Faruk Tekbilek
appointed musical chambers in the Traditional
best-seller Gypsy Fire is a collection of all-time
Gypsy Fire
Crossroads mansion: the first recordings of
bellydance classics recorded not, as the title
Traditional Crossroads
extraordinary yodel-hocketing polyphonic male
and packaging might suggest, with cheesy
CD4272
vocal groups in the Republic of Georgia in 1902,
synths, but by a star acoustic ensemble Irish traditional musicians in 1920s America,
including Hagopian and his oudist father pre-Taliban field recordings from Afghanistan,
Richard, Turkish multi-instrumentalist Omar Ukrainian cimbalom ace Alexander Fedoriouk,
Faruk Tekbilek, Bulgarian Roma sax star Yuri Kayhan Kalhor’s Iranian kamancheh, maestro
Yunakov, Armenian guitarist Ara Dinkjian and Djivan Gasparyan’s duduk, Iranian Kurdish santur
BBC Radio 3 Award For World Music winning innovator Ardavan Kamkar, Theodosii Spassov’s
percussionist and Armenian Navy Band leader Bulgarian kaval, Wu Man’s Chinese pipa meeting
Arto Tunçboyaciyan. with Julian Kytasty’s Ukrainian bandura, Indian
Another Turkish album that deserves new
sitar, Gambian and Senegalese kora griots,
attention is Sulukule – Rom Music Of Istanbul,
Bulgarian wedding-band reeds aces Ivo Papasov
featuring the wild, ecstatic sound of Roma
Joel Rubin Ensemble
and Yuri Yunakov reunited, Cuban tobacco
violinist Kemani Cemal Cinarli and his band
Midnight Prayer
music…
of three unison female singers, oud, darbuka,
Traditional Crossroads
Andrew Cronshaw
sobbing clarinet and rippling kanun. Full of
CD4332
33 Properganda 10
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