Customer Reviews

Alone at My Wedding (Bel)

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I play trumpet and I have folk danced for thirty years. I was in an American Band that tried to play Balkan music ( with varying success). And I own a bunch of other CDs of Balkan brass music. There is a lot of great stuff out there, but for the typical USA browser, the choices are very very confusing. First off, its all in another language; next when they package the english-language version you never really know whether the marketing on the cover will reflect the contents; and the tunes are usually presented out of context... for example, you get off track contemplating the difference between a cocek and a kyuchek.

If you are only going to buy one CD to explore the genre, my advice is that "Alone at My Wedding" should be the one to get. The premise is that this is a working band that usually does Rom weddings, and on this CD the band is playing a sample of the brass tunes from the current Balkan repertoire that would be played during one of the three-day Rom Weddings in their native Macedonia. The tunes are melodic, and there is some singing mixed in, along with virtuoso improvised breaks by the players, esp the reed players. the rhythms include ruchenitsas, coceks and lesnotos - in 7/8, 9/8 and 11/8 meters. It is infectious and daring. You can't resist toe-tapping and humming along. The tunes are in minor keys with a heavy oriental influence. The low brass chugs along in the background and for some reason when they are riffing like this it reminds me of the barely-under-control power of a muscle car cruising the strip or a pack of Harley-Davidson bikers - wow.

Now there evidently has been some controversy over the title of the band, and the story is worth telling. It seesm that there are two groups that go by the name "Kocani Orkestar". As the story goes, the original group features a trumpet player named Naat Veliov. This guy is amazing, and I think he is the only contemporary trumpet player in the WORLD who would use triple-tonguing during a jazz solo in Balkan meters in a minor key! I highly recommend his stuff too! astounding! A few years ago Mr. Veliov's band was recorded by a company in the Netherlands for their debut "world music" CD back along. Somehow the dutch production company ended up with the copyrights to the name "Kocani Orkestar". WHen the time for the next recording came along, Mr Veliov was not among the list of players, and the dutch company worked with some former members of his band to produce this CD. When it cam e time for Mr. Veliov to record again, to his surprise he was unable to use the name "Kocani Orkestar" again. chalk it up tot the vagaries of international copyright law. Mr Veliov has since produced some excellent CDs under the name "The Original Kocani Orkestar with Naat Veliov". (I found this info in a book "Princes among men: travels with gypsy musicians".... I suppose there is more than one version of this story.)

The confusion is unfortunate and illustrates the difficulty in figuring out who is who in the Balkan music scene. But is should not distract that "Alone at my wedding" is a very fun CD and a wonderful example of the genre.

I don't have the whole album yet. Downloaded a few tunes from Salon and they've been in constant rotation on my Nomad ever since. The rhythms on Usti Usti Baba are infectious and require physical activity. I don't have any other music to compare it to except maybe a cross-pollination between kletzmer and norteno music. Cudna Zena: If two open double decker buses filled with a drunken Hassidic band celebrating Purim and a gang of hard-core mariachi's celebrating Cinco de Mayo, and you recorded the crash, this is what it would sound like. Totally cool.

1. Siki, Siki Baba - (studio)
2. Oi Bori Sujie - (studio)
3. Cudna Zena - (studio)
4. Mi Bori Sar Korani - (studio)
5. Bayram Sekeri - (studio)
6. Rumunsko Gazal - (studio)
7. Stamena - (studio)
8. Marsilia Oro - (studio)
9. Alim Korkori Ko Bijav - (studio)
10. Fantaisia For Clarinet - (studio)
11. Ucime Majko - (studio)
12. Ismail Oro - (studio)
13. Zen Nube - (studio)
14. Goodbye Macedonia - (studio)