He’s not the only one working imaginatively within those traditions. Serbian Gypsy trumpeter Boban Markovic stayed home during the Yugoslavian civil war and, according to legend, persuaded fellow musician Bill Clinton to halt the NATO bombing of Belgrade. His brass band has long been one of the best traditional outfits of its kind, melding giddiness with melancholy, drunken abandon and drumbeat precision. Joined by his son Marko on his latest album, Boban unleashes a set of rollicking rhythms and hot solos suggesting an affinity between the music of the Balkans and New Orleans.
Brass bands have been found across Eastern Europe for ages, swapping licks in an organic process that crossed borders of politics and ethnicity. The Romanian Gypsies of Mahala Rai Banda share many affinities with their neighbors in the former Yugoslavia, starting with those madcap, rollicking rhythms. Occasionally on their latest disc, Ghetto Blasters, the horns even sound Latin or suggest early Dixieland, and vocals are pitched somewhere between ’60s soul and the cry of the Middle East. A matter of sonic DNA spread across continents or a postmodern world where influences travel at the click of a mouse? Banda’s sponge-like absorption of world music even results in a track called “Balkan Reggae,” anchoring the Jamaican beat to a tuba.
