33 f
ferences and the things in common between the two styles. We’re talking about a period when we don’t know what is Ottoman, what is Greek. They were really integrated. For instance Greek musicians expanded fasil’s repertoire. You can’t separate them. But if we need to put names on things, then fasil and rembetiko weren’t performed together in the same places. Rembetiko was a more underground and musically open style, fasil was more for palaces. We’re not working with the logic of the Conservatory. We base our music on old records because we like their emotions.”
Have you made Turkish versions of Greek rembetikos? “Yes, we made it for the song Gülbahar [Spring-Rose, a Turkish woman’s name, though the words of the song are in Greek]. Yes, people are really impressed by these songs but there’s something missing, which is the effect of lyrics. There’s a story, you can hear the melody but you can’t understand the whole story. So we translat- ed one verse into Turkish.”
“Now we’re in Beyo˘ glu. Until 1964 you couldn’t go shopping
here if you didn’t know any Greek. I’m saying this as a forgotten truth. Greek was spoken by 90 percent of the population here. Of course, now it’s not like that. [In 1964 there were about 40,000 Greeks in Istanbul, today there are about 2,000.] By our singing in Greek, people start to hear Greek again. All languages have their own acoustics. Sometimes we tell anecdotes about the songs before we perform them.”
“I
Aren’t the lyrics important? “Yes, but sometimes they don’t make much sense and in that case it’s harder to translate them. The melody is what carries you away.”
know that many people love rembetiko and perform it outside Greece. Maybe you know Charlie Howard [the compiler of JSP’s essential rembetiko compila- tions]. But of course it’s not well-known by the majority. Maybe it didn’t click somehow. It’s a region- al music, it can be the reason. More people can appreciate it but it requires another discipline. People who make rembetiko are gen- erally modest. We were performing at Ghetto [an Istanbul club] and then we played at TIM [a glitzy theatre with which – improba- bly – Kalan has good relations]. Normally Café Aman is 9 or 10 people but at TIM we were 25, 17 musicians and eight dancers. It sold out and a different Café Aman was born. We were a bit anx- ious before that, we hadn’t performed on a big stage before. It’s important where you perform, and of course the right PR is impor- tant. There wasn’t any PR for rembetiko before. Nowadays, music can’t exist without PR. Music is a sector now. Not only Café Aman filled the venue, it was also the success of the venue’s PR.”
Has the band written any of its own songs? “We’re working on couple of things but it has to take its own time. To get this far we pushed hard. It requires time to understand a different kind of traditional music. But we’re working towards the future.”
Café Aman Istanbul have a very strong sense of what they’ve achieved so far and what they’d like to achieve in the future. I don’t think there’s another rembetiko band like them anywhere, and, both for the sake of the music and helping the stuttering return of cultural diversity into Turkish life, I can only hope that they stick to their guns and wish them the best of luck.
www.cafeamanistanbul.com F
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84