Artists: Savina Yannatou, Primavera En Salonico Title: Songs Of Thessaloniki Release Date: 06 Mar 2015 Duration: 01:07:44 Genre: World Fusion, Ethnic Jazz Recorded: February 2014, Sierra Studios, Athens Engineer: Yiorgo Kariotis, Yanis Paxevanis Design: Sascha Kleis Produced by Manfred Eicher and Steve Lake Label: ECM Records – ECM 2398, ECM Records – 470 9151 ***Commentary from http://www.ecmrecords.com/: You rose to every challenge, In you the universe found a champion, A master of feats, changing the nations. Hymn to Saint Demetrius, patron saint of Thessaloniki Savina Yannatou’s fourth ECM album is a dazzling evocation of her band’s hometown, plunging deep into its rich and complex history. Once known colloquially as the Jerusalem of the Balkans, Thessaloniki has been home to a host of cultures, religions and ethnic communities. Greeks, Jews, Turks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Armenians, Slav-Macedonians and Pontiac Greeks have shared the city’s diverse life. Yannatou gives all of them a voice, even casting an Irish song about Salonika into this multi-lingual programme, in which she shines as a unique interpreter and spokeswoman for the city’s ghosts. As ever, Primavera en Salonico are a delight, one of the most resourceful bands of any idiom, as they negotiate the inspired – and very varied - arrangements of Kostas Vomvolos. Postcards of sound, snapshots from the past: such were Primavera’s starting points for this project. Savina Yannatou: “Old songs, as if with the label Souvenir de salonique, were our original materials. They became canvases for our imagination to create contemporary narratives on old myths. Sometimes the original ‘pictures’ are merely coated with colour, sometimes only the outlines are saved, and sometimes the addition of the new material transforms them completely. There is however an element which remains – by choice – almost unaltered throughout this process: the timbre of the instruments. This is what mostly forms the ‘texture’ of the material and conveys the final sense of the whole endeavor.” Behind the instrumental texture are the personalities of the players. This is a characterful group, whose core members have been collaborating as an ensemble for more than 20 years. Primavera en Salonico was formed in 1993 to play Vomvolos’s arrangements of Sephardic Jewish songs, with Savina as vocalist. But musical connections between several of the players stretch back still further, to the beginning of the 1980s. Between them they have played traditional music and thoroughly experimental music, and the range of experience opens new perspectives on this programme of songs. Listen for instance to the arrangement of the Sephardic traditional “La cantiga del fuego”, which speaks of the great fire which destroyed the centre of the city in 1917. Savina and band conjure the flickering flames in an eerie introduction and then deliver a lament which could only be phrased by traditionalists with present-day improvisational awareness. An Armenian folk song collected by Komitas is transformed into a poised chamber music miniature. A Bektashi Sufi song from Turkey praises Mohammad’s son-in-law as “the light filling up the world”, and draws forth some deeply soulful ney and percussion-playing. Meanwhile, the sardonic lyrics of the Irish song “Salonika” from the first world war period, inspire Savina to an almost Brechtian music hall treatment, “And when the war is over /What will the soldiers do?/They'll be walking around with a leg and a half/And the slackers, they'll have two...” Different social, philosophical, and religious viewpoints swarm here. The liner notes, by Savina’s sister Sofia Giannatou, remind us of the ways in which music could unite across cultural divides in the old Thessaloniki, “Family gatherings and religious feasts provided opportunities for singing and dancing, and in the taverns several musical styles were performed by musicians of all ethnic groups; Judeo-Spanish songs, oriental melodies, Greek and Turkish lyrics, Balkan tunes, all coexisted and often lent elements to each other in improvisations that enriched and broadened the repertory. A Christian cantor might meet there with a synagogue chanter, singing secular songs for their own enjoyment, amateur singers would interact with professional musicians, versions of lyrics in three languages might interchange in the same songs.” This tradition of tolerance and mutual encouragement is echoed in Songs of Thessaloniki. Songs of Thessaloniki was produced by Manfred Eicher, and recorded at Sierra Studios, Athens, in February 2014. The album is launched with a European tour, with concerts in Ascona (March 19), Heidelberg (March 20), Den Haag (March 21), Utrecht (March 22), Ghent (March 24), Antwerp (March 25), Vienna (March 26), Villach (March 27), Glarus (March 28), Rapperswill (29). More details can be found at www.ecmrecords.com where lyrics of Songs of Thessalonki together with English translations can also be found. For further biographical information on Savina Yannatou and the members of Primavera en Salonico, visit Savina’s web site: www.savinayannatou.com ***Track listing: 01. Apolitikion Agiou Dimitriou [2:24] Greek hymn of St. Demetrius 02. A la scola del Allianza [2:14] Sephardic traditional 03. Tin Patrida Mou Ehasa [5:45] Pontiac-Greek traditional Lyrics: Christos Antoniadis 04. Dimo is Solun hodeshe [5:18] Bulgarian traditional 05. La cantiga del fuego [4:12] Sephardic traditional 06. Una muchacha en Selanica [4:19] Sephardic traditional 07. Iptidadan yol sorarsan [5:36] Turkish Bektashi hymn Lyrics: Sah Ismail Hatayi 08. Qele-qele [3:17] Armenian traditional collected by Komitas 09. Calin Davullari [5:23] Turkish traditional 10. To yelekaki [3:58] Greek song Music: Spyros Ollandezos Lyrics: Giannis Theodoridis 11. Salonika [2:57] Irish folk song collected by Jimmy Crowley 12. Inchu Bingyole mdar? [1:59] Armenian traditional collected by Komitas 13. Jelena Solun Devojko [4:19] Kosovo Serbian traditional 14. Yedi-koule [4:44] Greek song Music: Sosos Ioannidis Lyrics: Emilios Savidis 15. Poulakin eiha se klouvi [4:14] Greek traditiona collected by Giorgos Melikis 16. Pismo dojde od Soluna grada [4:31] Slav-Macedonian traditional 17. Apolitikion Agiou Dimitriou [2:22] Greek hymn of St. Demetrius All songs arranged and orchestred by Kostas Vomvolos ***MusicianS Savina Yannatou - voice Yannis Alexandris - oud, guitar Kostas Vomvolos - qanun, accordion Kyriakos Gouventas - violin Harris Lambrakis - nay Michalis Siganidis - double bass Kostas Theodorou - percussion ***Review from http://thejazzbreakfast.com/: Savina Yannatou & Primavera en Salonico – Songs Of Thessaloniki BY PETER BACON on 25 MARCH 2015 (ECM 470 9151) We all know how universal music can be, how multi-cultural and how unrestricted by the passing of time, but sometimes an album comes along which stresses all of these qualities in such high relief that they re-assert the full magic of the medium. This fourth ECM disc from the Greek singer and her magical band concentrates on one city, the band’s own, and its rich musical heritage. As the liner notes list them, here are the stories of “The patron Saint Dimitrios who protects the city; the daring schoolgirl of the Alliance school of Jewish pro-European education; the prisoner in Yedi Kule with his rosebush as black as his heart; the Sephardic fire victim who tries to repent for his sins in his makeshift tent; Dimo who wants to go back to Bulgaria to marry; the Slav-Macedonian who wants to go to the wedding not as the best man but as the groom; the Pontiac refugee who longs for home; the Jewish girl who wants to be Turkish, no longer hearing her mother berate her for burning the food; the enamoured Armenian; and the Turkish maiden who died three days before her wedding”. Yannatou has the perfectly natural, unaffected singing voice of the best folk singers, an instrument devoted to telling the stories in the songs, and Primavera en Salonico has a huge range of atmospheres at its disposal, comprising qanun/accordion, oud/guitar, violin, nay flute, double bass and percussion. There is far, far too much history, sociology, romance, heartbreak, politics, musical tradition and contemporary, improvisatory artistry here to be able to it justice in a short review. Do get hold of this album which is brimming with riches from its black and white historic photographs and enlightening liner notes to the life-affirming and celebratory music preserved within its silver disc. And if you want to try one track first, I’d suggest Una Muchacha en Selanica, a Sephardic traditional song of such beauty you might just forget to breathe during its 4 minutes and 19 seconds. Full artwork included, scanned as TIFF at 600dpi, then transformed and resized to PNG 300dpi
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