28/01/2007

Ivo Papasov - Balkanology (1991)

Il bulgaro Ivo Papasov, virtuoso del clarinetto, è noto come «il re della wedding music». Nato nel 1952 a Kurdzhali, un villaggio della Tracia vicino al confine con Grecia e Turchia, da famiglia turca di origini rom, Papasov iniziò a suonare il clarinetto all’età di 9 anni e nel 1974 fondò il gruppo Trakiya; successivamente, a Plovdiv, formò il Plovdiv Jazz Folk Ensemble, con cui continuò la sua carriera di musicista itinerante, suonando in centinaia di villaggi e cittadine del suo Paese, diventando il musicista più ricercato per le feste di matrimonio. In patria è chiamato «Aga», maestro, e la sua musica, oltre a tenere banco nei maggiori teatri, è la colonna sonora delle celebrazioni più importanti. In Occidente, la notorietà è giunta nel 1991 con questo Balkanology, prodotto da Joe Boyd, considerato da molti (me compreso) un capolavoro e il manifesto della poetica di Papasov: brani originali e rielaborazioni di temi tradizionali bulgari, macedoni, greci, turchi e rom (per lo più caratterizzati da tempi dispari, tipici della musica balcanica), interpretati da Ivo e la sua orchestra con l’energia di un gruppo rock e l’abilità di fraseggio e la verve improvvisativa di un consumato ensemble jazz.

A towering figure of the contemporary Bulgarian wedding music movement, clarinetist Ivo Papasov earned international success on the strength of his influential jazz-folk style. Born in 1952 of Turkish Rom (Gypsy) ancestry, in 1974 he founded the group Trakiya, quickly emerging as the unrivalled king of wedding music, the most popular Bulgarian style; Papasov’s distinctive sound – an improvisational, energetic aesthetic heavily influenced by diverse sources including traditional folk, film scores and cartoon music – found its most fervent following among younger listeners, the attraction undoubtedly the music’s similarities to the kinetic spirit of Western rock. In Bulgaria’s new democratic society of the 1990s, his music thrived, with long-awaited official recordings seeing the light of day not only at home, but also abroad. The superb and largely instrumental Balkanology draws not only on Bulgarian elements, but also the music of Greece, Turkey and Romania. Listening to this heartfelt music (much of it quite fast), one can hear the parallels between Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and East European forms. Papasov is quite the improviser, and in fact, American jazz has had a significant impact on his loose and very spontaneous modal playing. (AMG review, freely edited)

Link in comments

5 comments:

DJ Radu said...

http://rapidshare.com/files/13771292/IPBalk.rar.html

Anonymous said...

radu, this is it, this is gold!

i'm not proud to tell it, but without john zorn and frank zappa i won't have discovered this bulgarian genius - they wrote about him, and i searched along...
this is my favorite (of the only two i have!) - but i'm sure in bulgaria there are MANY cassettes out from him, but i only have access to what's sold here in allemagne, too...

wonderful! - if you're searching for the other on hannibal, i have that up (though only the dl-link, not the post yet - i still have to import all my posts, just started on a new blog...).

cheers, lucky

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