Re: [Harp-L] Trio Polifonic Harmonica Trio

[Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rick wrote:
> That's wonderful! I'll have to wait till I'm at home to work out what 
> key/position he's in. That's really fluid and rhythmic simultaneously. Is 
> that a known melody they are playing? I'm assuming it falls into the 
> Klezmer bag, no?

It doesn't sound very much like any Klezmer I've ever heard.  If we were 
all specialists in eastern European music I'm sure we'd hear some 
connection.  Since it's a Romanian group, perhaps it's some form of 
Romainian folk music or dance music.

The famous Klezmer song is "Romania Romania" but the Klezmer cats I know 
make fun of the old people that request it.  It's the "When the Saint's Go 
Marching In" of Klezmer -- the one Klezmer song the civilians know.  And 
that song sounds nothing like this wonderful harmonica band.

However, Klezmer is absolutely expected to grow and change, so maybe this 
is what it sounds like in Romanian now.

Before he actually became a Klezmer musician himself, Andy Statman studied 
with a bunch of Eastern European music masters who were all living in dire 
poverty in NYC.  Communism was still the law of the land in their 
countries, and cultural anhilation was the order of the day, so they'd all 
blown their homes.  Each master represented a completely different form of 
Eastern European music, and confusing one with any other would have been as 
weird to them as confusing Bluegrass with 70's Funk.  One afternoon Andy 
took me on a musical tour of Eastern Europe with his amazing record 
collection, and he kind of opened my eyes, if only for that day.

At one point he played me several different kinds of music that were native 
JUST to Istanbul, which I realize is not in Europe.  Each one sounded 
really different from the others.  Amazingly, he had 78's of music that was 
only played in Istanbul gay bars.

Has anyone counted the time signature of this tune of Trio Polifonic?

K