Nicolae Guta: Part I

Animal metaphors are not incidental to any physical description of Guța. From the reedy man in solid-color polyester suits in the early videos – now recently reposted on Youtube – to the ever-more-portly incarnations of the late 1990s and beyond, Guța’s face comes increasingly to resemble a bulldog. His bulbous eyes are planted at a slightly sad angle on either side of a huge slab of nose. His default gaze is somewhat addled, as if withered under the relentless impact of poor quality alcohol. Chin, dimpled; teeth, rabbity; jowls, packed; gums propped up and tight as if packed with immense wads of cotton; a single fang (upper, right) points slightly outward, describing the arc down the immense bulb of his belly. The latter object is perched atop two spindly legs, which originate from a dark cavern deep underneath it. These are capable of shifting the bulk of the item around with considerable grace, given the circumstances. It is often nowadays in a white suit. Particularly in light of the imbalance between torso and disembodied head, his dance style owes something to Charlie Chaplin. This effect is heightened by the fact that current Romani shoe styles render even longer his already over-long feet. Stuck to either side of his muscle-bound head are a pair of elfin ears and pasted across the centre of his face, the trademark moustache, curved in two sad half-moons downward. The organizers of this year’s New Years Eve television gala gave him a slapstick role dressed in a Securitate uniform, which seemed strangely appropriate.3 Remarkably, in light of the sum of the parts, the overall impression is of devilish charm.

But Guța’s voice, at the height of its powers, has been pure gold: instantly recognizable, precise in several octaves of range, in turns honeyed, sharp, gravelly, slightly nasal. He has – or at least had –immense stamina for the endless, quavered and embellished keened notes of the siniake/doina table-song laments. He has seemed never to need to resort to crooning because his voice has managed to

follow even his more intense emotional ambitions. In some films of weddings – his natural performative element – even he seems surprised at his abilities. In this sense, neither his children, nor national rivals such as Adrian Minune, Copilul de Aur or Florin Salaam, nor his only approximate rival on the Romani scene — Sandu Ciorba — are in his league.

Despite a boom in Romani music – including Romanian Romani music – taking place over the last decade in the “World Music” scene, Guța is relatively unknown outside Romania. He does not appear on the major World Music labels and is not featured in the major summer festival circuit of Europe’s summer. He is too expensive. In 2005, he cost 2500 EUR per hour or 10,000 EUR per night. Since his milieu is Romani weddings and similar Romani community events, this sum is a mere down payment for bakshish and request payments at the event itself.

As a result, particularly prior to his Bucharest move, his has been a performative mode developed almost entirely facing traditional – and highly demanding — Romani audiences, in performances generally lasting twelve hours or more. These Romani audiences come for the most important affirmative event on the Romani calendar – the wedding – and expect the Romani world reflected in the mirror of the band – and especially the singer. In the case of virtuoso wedding performers like Guța, the singer becomes the narrator of Romani values and of a Romani lifeworld, played out in the course of the event itself.

TO BE CONTINUED

Coming next…

Coming next: Part III – Nicolae Gutsa: Esteemed Listener

Third Saturday of October, 1999: A thin, poor and obviously Romani man is peddling wares on a ragged blanket at the annual market at Negrin/Fekete tó, just outside Cluj Napoca, the capital of Transylvania.
The Negrin market is held in an open expanse of field just off a small railroad stop. The Hungarian name for the village – Fekete tó – adds mystery to the place; the Romanian name means “Black”, while the Hungarian name means “Black Lake”. There is no lake anywhere nearby. Clear, blue sky; cold, bright autumn sun. A cloud of smoke from roasting meat drifts past. Behind the man are two tattered columns of audio speakers, blasting music at such high volume that it is impossible to get close enough to see what he is selling. The music is so distorted that it is barely recognizable as music, more pulsing fuzz than anything else; unbearably, shockingly, painfully loud. The man rocks back and forth, as if in a trance. Guța Volume 7.

1. claudecahn@gmail.com. The author is grateful to his wife Cosmina Novacovici for extensive assistance with the translation of the texts of songs quoted in this essay, as well as for critical comments on a number of observations included here.
2. This is a somewhat different kind of claim to the series of observations concerning “the invention of tradition” included in the volume of the same name edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Hobsbawm, Eric, and Ranger, Terence (eds.), The Invention of Traditions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
3. Vaguely suggestive of brutality is Guța’s past in heavy industry in the town of Petroşani, a mining centre. On several occasions after 1989, miners been summoned to Bucharest to violently quell protests by students and intellectuals. Among many Romani fans, Guța is believed to have actually been a miner. However, his official website (http://personal.nicolaeguta.ro/, accessed 30 January 2009) identifies him as having worked for the railroad.
4. See Stewart, Michael, Time of the Gypsies, Boulder: Westview Press, 1997, particularly pp.50-72 and 181-202.
5. Someone has recently uploaded videos of these – featuring Romani dancing in the Timiş style and a thin Guța seemingly from a different era — onto YouTube. The direct links are provided with each song.
6. Lyrics are not included on Guța cassettes, though the titles of songs are. For a number of reasons, I am not using the Romanian-language orthography used by Guța on the cassettes to render Romani. I use instead spelling more conducive to unequivocal recognition by native English speakers. Thus, for example, I have rendered “Shukar San, Shukar Kheles”, where Guța uses “Şucar san, Şucar cheles”.
7. http://www.youtube.com/watch
8. http://www.youtube.com/watch8
9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?9
10. For an excellent exploration of this tension, see Sante, Luc, “The Genius of the Blues”, in New York Review of Books, Volume 41, Number 14, August 11, 1994.
11. See Verdery, Katherine, National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceausescu’s Romania, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press, 1991.
12. This is a somewhat different kind of claim to the series of observations concerning “the invention of tradition” included in the volume of the same name edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Hobsbawm, Eric, and Ranger, Terence (eds.), The Invention of Traditions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

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It’s easy to understand the allure of Gypsy music. It evokes a certain amount of vagabond romanticism that comes from a culture of people who have wandered for generations. There is also a passion in the music that comes from providing comfort and happiness to the Roma (Gypsy) people under what are often difficult conditions.

Now in its sixth year, the New York Gypsy Festival celebrates Gypsy music in its various forms, both traditional and modern. It takes place over the course of 10 days: today through Oct. 3. And its keynote event — the Black Sea Roma Festival, celebrating Gypsy music from Turkey, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Romania, and scheduled for Sunday at Central Park Summerstage — is already billed as the largest Gypsy music event of the year, making a splash with the U.S. debut of the highly acclaimed band, Mahala Rai Banda.

“It all started because we love this music and have a passion for it and would like other people to share in this passion with us,” festival co-founder and co-producer Mehmet Dede points out. “For the past six years, we haven’t had a major sponsor. It’s an independently supported and produced festival where all the income is from ticket sales. This year is the biggest year yet thanks to the Central Park Summerstage show.”

The New York Gypsy Festival has grown over the years, starting out at small underground bars in Lower Manhattan that mostly cater to a Central and Eastern European immigrant clientele. These days established arts organizations the World Music Institute and the Center for Traditional Music and Dance have joined with Dede and his partner, Serdar Ilhan, and fans will come from as far as Mexico and the West Coast.

Originally from India, the Roma people traveled west to Europe and North Africa. As tribes traveled through different places, the musicians integrated local sounds and instrumentation. Because of the transient nature of Gypsy culture, festival organizers are taking great pains to illustrate the rich diversity of its music.

“The four countries that are part of the Sunday lineup all bring their own flavor to a music from a region,” Dede says. “The Romanian band Mahala Rai Banda uses strings and brass instrumentation, while Bulgarian and Turkish musicians will play songs that are mainstays at weddings with the sax and the clarinet being the choice of the lead instrument, respectively. Ukrainian band Técsöi is a family fiddle band from a tiny village in the Ukrainian Carpathians. It’s an eclectic bill for the curious ears and is sure to move the crowd.”

Not surprisingly, Gypsy music continues to change in Europe and the United States as newer bands such as Gogol Bordello (which headlined the festival’s first year), Devotchka and Beirut are mixing in the sounds of punk and indie rock. New Orleans brass band leaders such as Trombone Shorty have picked up a few tricks from the Balkan brass bands and Balkan brass bands such as Brooklyn’s Slavic Soul Party have integrated Crescent City’s gumbo of jazz, funk and soul. Remixers have also embraced the music as well, with Mahala Rai Banda’s recent album, “Ghetto Blaster,” getting remixed by A-list people such as Basement Jaxx and Nouvelle Vague.

Even Madonna has embraced the music, prominently featuring Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hutz and Sergey Ryabtsev onstage for her Live Earth 2007 performance, which was broadcast globally. She also introduced the band to super-producer Rick Rubin, who signed it to Columbia Records.

Yet with all this recent acclaim, some things never change. “For me, it’s a celebration of life, whether it be the upbeat party tunes or the slower numbers, the laments,” Dede explains. “It’s genuine, it’s from the heart, it’s all about sharing it with others. Gypsies are nomads and so is their music. Their music took the shape of the countries and regions they inhabited. It’s music for the global citizen in all of us — we are all, in that respect, Gypsies at heart.”

Black Sea Roma Festival, with Mahala Rai Banda, Selim Sesler and the New York Gypsy All-Stars, Técsöi Banda, the Yuri Yunakov Ensemble. Where: Central Park Summerstage, Rumsey Playfield (enter the park at 69th Street and Fifth Avenue), New York. When: Sunday, 3-7 p.m. How much: $10 suggested donation. Visit summerstage.org or nygypsyfest.com/2010.

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Parno Graszt, a gypsy band from a village in northeast Hungary, is adding the U.S. and Canada to the list of countries captivated by its haunting Roma melodies and syncopations.

The band, which kicked off a month-long, 22-date North American tour on Sept. 12, performs at the Napa Valley Opera House Friday.

A fixture on the European festival circuit, Parno Graszt — meaning “white horse,” a symbol of purity and freedom in Romani language — is the band other gypsy musicians look to for inspiration and authenticity. Its members come from Paszab, a town on the Tisza river in Hungary’s poorest, least-developed region.

Roma music and traditions continue to flourish in Paszab where, half a century ago, a village elder devoted himself to preserving gypsy culture, particularly music and dance.
Parno Graszt was formed in 1987 and consists of several generations of one large family. “Nobody in our group has ever trained in music,” explains bandleader Joszef Olah. “My mother, Erzsebet Nemeth, envisioned a band and goaded me to form one that would sing our kind of music.
“Anything that can be used to create sound is an instrument for us,” he added. “We’ve even rubbed our fingers on door surfaces to create melody.”
The band plays traditional gypsy folk songs collected from North East Hungary and Romania along with their own compositions.
Their instruments are acoustic guitars, double bass, tamboura, cimbalom, accordion, violins, taragot, spoons, stereo water can and the “oral bass,” a continuous vocal improvisation made by the percussionist.
The band consists of nine musicians including four dancers — on special occasions the number of dancers is extended to 18, including three generations aged from 7 to 78.
A 50 year-old archival video is projected behind the group on stage, presenting the parents and grandparents of Parno Graszt dancing parallel with them.
The nine core members of Parno Graszt are Olah (vocals, guitar, tambura); Geza Balogh (vocals, guitar, dance);
Viktor Olah (vocals, guitar, dance); Sandor Horvath (vocals, spoons, dance); Janos Jakocska (vocals, guitar), Maria Vardi (vocals, dance); Maria Balogh (vocals, dance); Krisztian Olah (accordion); Janos Olah (double bass) and Istvan Nemeth (oral bass, milk can) but it is not unusual for the core to be augmented by other members of the family and other instruments.
Parno Graszt’s first album, “Rávágok a zongorára” (Hit the Piano) was released in 2002 and reached No. 7 on the European world music chart. The band’s second album, “Járom az utam” (… In My World), featuring Hungarian cimbalom master Kálmán Balogh, was released in 2004. “Ez a világ nekem való” (This World is Made for Me), released in 2007, marked the band’s 20th anniversary.
The disc features a version of the Parno Graszt song “Gelem Gelem” by remix master DJ Gaetano Fabri.
Songs from the album are included on the compilations “Rough Guide to the Music of Hungarian Gypsies” and “BalkanBeats 3.”
To find out more about Parno Graszt, visit here

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