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Tuesday, October 24, 2006
IME PREZAKIAS
Orhan Osman
Maziden
Doublemoon : 2005
[Preview and Buy It]
Most of what I know about Turkish culture I learned from my Greek friends. I am endlessly fascinated by the uneasy fit between culture and political boundaries, and people's stubborn determination to fill those boundaries with coherent, self-adhesive stuff.
Orhan Osman, who was born in Greece and now lives in Turkey, seems a good vehicle for my weighty thoughts. I'm not a huge fan, but I love this song, a remake of an old rembetika tune. I have a version recorded in the 1920s by the great Roza Eskenazi, a Sephardic Jew born in Istanbul who sang in Greek, Turkish, Armenian, Ladino, and even Yiddish, I think. Rembetika music is all about getting high, getting into fights, and getting laid, which is why it's called the Greek blues. (Ime Prezakias means "I'm a junkie.") Mostly, the drug songs are about hash, but some of them sing about smack and cocaine too. Like this one:
EGO THELO PRIGIPESSA
Stallakis Perpiniadhis
Available on:
Rembetika: Greek Music from the Underworld (v.1)
JSP : 2006
[Buy It]
He's singing how this Moroccan princess has fallen in love with him. (Why a Moroccan princess would be hanging out in Piraeus, he doesn't say.) She says she'll make him a king in Arabia and give him wagonloads (camel-loads?) of hash and cocaine. And there'll be lots and lots of hookahs.
Rembetika is Greek music, but very Turkish, especially in the 1920s and 30s. For example, Ime Prezakias is a tsifte telli, or, in the Turkish way, cifte telli: a Turkish dance rhythm that's particularly friendly to belly-dancing. More fundamentally, the whole culture of rembetika reflects life in the multicultural Ottoman cities of Constantinople/Istanbul and Smyrna/Izmir. In 1923, in an attempt to make national boundaries make sense, ethnic Greeks were expelled from the newly formed Turkish Republic and vice versa. Many of the Greek rembetes and rembetisses emigrated to the homeland they'd never seen then, bringing their decadent Ottoman ways with them. The refugees weren't especially welcome in Greece. They settled in port cities like Piraeus and Thessaloniki and became manges, outlaw types who scorned conventional society, especially jobs and cops. In Greece, rembetika was played mainly in jails, hash dens, and brothels. Early rembetika is sometimes sung in Turkish; there are songs like "The Dervish's Broad"; and it has a distinctly Middle Eastern sound to it. More musically literate folk than I could explain why, but you can hear what I mean.
TAKE ME INTO YOUR EMBRACE
Marika Kanaropoulou
Available on: Women of Rembetica
Rounder : 2000
[Buy It]
Marika Kanaropoulou, who was born in Bursa, was also known as Tourkalitsa, little Turkish girl. And now, some notes from two of my favorite diasporas.
HICAZ DOLOP ROM
Hasam Yarim Dunya
Available on: Latcho Drom (soundtrack)
Mercator : 1994
[Buy It]
USKUDAR TAXIM/TERK IN AMERIKE
Metropolitan Klezmer
Mosaic Persuasion
Rhythm Media : 2000
[Buy It]
Migrations, expulsions, exile: they keep culture moving. If you've ever seen the magnificent Latcho Drom, you know exactly what I mean. "Hicaz Dolop Rom" is from a Turkish gypsy ensemble featured in the film. I don't know much about Turkish gypsies, but, on the whole, gypsies don't seem to do well in other people's countries. Which means all of them. And then, there's the Jews. Uskudar is a suburb of Istanbul today, but was originally a town near the old Jewish district of Kuzguncuk. A taxim, or taqsim, is a highly formalized kind of improv, and if I had the Naftule Brandwein version of "Terk in Amerike" you'd be hearing clarinet magic. But I have to buy food for my kid, so I can't buy so many CDs. And Metropolitan Klezmer isn't bad, as new klezmer goes.
People of the world, my apologies: Blogger doesn't let us do accents or diacritics.Labels: megan, world
posted by Megan
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