There is a band, based in New York’s Astoria, that showcases a quite unusual mix of New York’s finest musicians.
With musicians raised on the roots of Greek, Turkish, FYROM and American culture, even more unusual is the music these stereotype-breaking band plays: Gypsy music.
The New York Gypsy All-Stars have amazed audiences around the world. Their style features songs influenced by Gypsy and Balkans’ rhythms, with bits of jazz.
Any Balkanian who hears the music, will recognise familiar sounds they grew up with.
Or, as the band’s member, Panagiotis Andreou, quotes his father – when Greeks hear this music, they behave just like the Indian cobra on the pipe music of its charming fakir.
Just before he makes his way to another Greek capital, Melbourne, Athenian-born bass player from Astoria, Andreou talked to Neos Kosmos about his Gypsy music band, his “neighbours” and friends that he plays with.
Apart from the leader of the band, young Macedonian-Turkish clarinet virtuoso Ismail Lumanovski, it’s Tamer Pinarbasi from Turkey on qanun, Panogiotis Andreu from Greece on bass, Melbourne-born Engin Gunaydin from Turkey on drums with Jason Linder on keys, that will make you fight the goose bumps once you hear them performing .
It was after moving to New York from Athens, in 1999, where he was granted a scholarship for one of the most prestigious music conservatories – Berkeley, and finishing his masters degree, that touring and gigs around the Big Apple started for Panagiotis Andreou.
However, it was never on his mind that he would end up playing Gypsy music.
“I’m a classical story of a white boy from the Balkans. I grew up in the city, so you grow up with that music. There are Gypsies everywhere, but unfortunately you grew up with racism toward them. It’s that kind of love-hate relationship, where you like their music – like that of Saleas and Zervas – but you hate everything else,” Panagiotis tells Neos Kosmos.
“It’s like that everywhere in the Balkans – on both Orthodox and Muslim sides – it is due to the ex-Ottoman and Byzantine Empire we lived in, and the consistency of time that these nations have stayed together, that we share parts of culture,” he explains.
It was that consistency and culture these nations share, that made Panagiotis Andreou end up on the stage, while attending one of the New York gigs of Ismail Lumanovski.
He insisted on playing some hot traditional Balkan sounds with Lumanovski, and took the bass from the hands of the player, and started playing.
The public went silent, while Balkanians became loud, and the seed of The New York Gypsy All-Stars was planted. It was 2004.
For the first time, it made sense for Andreou to play this kind of music, and do what he liked – play bass.
Today, members of the band are very often named “bi-musical virtuosi”, due to the fact they are educated in the halls of the world’s best music schools, like Berkeley and Julliard, but are equally trained in classical and folklore music.
“Balkan music in general – you can’t go wrong with that. In USA, Balkan music has the potential to replace salsa. Our music is thoroughly arranged instrumental music. We are all trained, but at the same time we all have to play weddings in order to play some other gigs as well.
“We grew up with paniyiri and wedding stuff. This music doesn’t necessarily have to be cheap music. Not that we mind that – that’s part of culture, we are not from Buckingham Palace, you know. I choose to live in Astoria, that’s where I from, and I scream it. We can be who we are, and be educated at the same time,” Panagiotis says passionately.
For a musician playing Balkans’ rhythms, as he says, it is “an unbelievable passport” to have a Balkans’ origin.
“I come from a place in Europe with the most swing and heavy musical culture. It’s not as easy if you don’t have a strong folklore.”
With fans from the whole spectrum of musicians – from Gypsy music lovers, to jazz and progressive rock fans, the band has “a name” in all of its members’ respected countries – Greece, Turkey, FYROM and USA.
“It’s touchy stuff between us, Balkanians. The point is: I’m Greek, they are Turkish, he is from FYROM – and that’s it. We’ve been playing together for years. I don’t have to try and be friends with them – we are friends,” Panagiotis concludes.