It's hard to explain where, exactly, a musical passion comes from, but when I was fourteen my uncle Jozsi bought me a record of authentic Hungarian folk music and a fiddle. On that record was a cut of music from the central Transylvanian plains, a cut of music played by a fiddle band which literally jumped out of the vinyl grooves and nested in my psyche... it became my demon, my sound, and I spent years going after it. The music was from the village of Palatka, and eventually, after years of playing all kinds of music in all kinds of bands, I came to Hungary to try and get a grip on how, exactly, this beautiful and ...
weird... music was played and... concieved. [
First three photographs taken by the fabulous Fumie Suzuki at a wedding in Palatka in April, 2003]
The musicians from Palatka hail from a dynasty of Gypsy musicians led by the Kodoba family, particularly the sons of Lolo Kodoba - Bela, Marton, and Lorinc. Bela, was an amazing - and obese - fiddler (as well as the village garbage collector) whose family fame was that he could eat 28 stuffed cabbages in a sitting. He died in 1998 - heart attack, on stage in Hungary. Marton took over leadership of the band, with his son Florin taking the second fiddle role. I struck up a long friendship with Marton after a chance meeting on the street in Cluj, where he had moved after a messy divorce, much like mine. Beer, boiled potatos, and the miseries of newly found singledom bound us. We had several years of fiddling together, during which I finally began to grasp the inner aesthetic of the Palatka style of music - a music in which modal melodies are not harmonized using minor chords at all. It is a style that is archaic by dint of its isolation - nobody ever demanded minor chords. Why use a D minor when an F major would do? The tension inherent in their harmonies is one of the most exciting facets of Transylvanian Gypsy music.
Marton died tragically in 2003 at a folk dance camp in Transylavania, and there was a lot of speculation that the tradition would die along with him. After all, it is getting harder for the village Gypsy bands to get wedding work, when for the same money more modern entertainment, such as a boom-box and some CDs, can be given to the bride and groom as well. But Marton's brother, Lorinc, moved up the ranks from Kontra fiddle to primas, and Florin mastered not only the lead fiddle, but learned Hungarian and English as well in order to reperesent the band in their newer role as international representatives of "Transylvanian folklore." And they do it damn well, as these picture from their monthly gig at the Fono in Budapest attest.
I'll be adding bits and pieces of more youtube recordings as I upload them... because really, if you don't actually watch how these guys bow and move together, you can't learn the music. Sarah Alden, the NY fiddler for the
Luminescent Orchestrii, asked me how I managed to learn to play the slow table songs from Palatka. I answered... a bit in my cups... "Oh, it's all in the bowing, you just have to hang with them a bit and watch... and listen to the music until you really get it." How long did that take me? asked Sarah. "Hmm... for me, about 30 years..." Puma, who can be seen sitting in on kontra here, has been at it even longer. He's not even considered a revival flk musician in Palatka... he's actually become the real thing.
Pardon the shakey camera work... my little canon digital is the size of a pack of camels... but if you go to my
youtube page, I'll be putting up bits of music that that little box of digitality has been stealing as I go.... I 've already added a bunch more cuts from Palatka, with different music to come from wherever I travel...
It's hard to explain where, exactly, a musical passion comes from, but when I was fourteen my uncle Jozsi bought me a record of authentic Hungarian folk music and a fiddle. On that record was a cut of music from the central Transylvanian plains, a cut of music played by a fiddle band which literally jumped out of the vinyl grooves and nested in my psyche... it became my demon, my sound, and I spent years going after it. The music was from the village of Palatka, and eventually, after years of playing all kinds of music in all kinds of bands, I came to Hungary to try and get a grip on how, exactly, this beautiful and ... weird... music was played and... concieved. [First three photographs taken by the fabulous Fumie Suzuki at a wedding in Palatka in April, 2003]
The musicians from Palatka hail from a dynasty of Gypsy musicians led by the Kodoba family, particularly the sons of Lolo Kodoba - Bela, Marton, and Lorinc. Bela, was an amazing - and obese - fiddler (as well as the village garbage collector) whose family fame was that he could eat 28 stuffed cabbages in a sitting. He died in 1998 - heart attack, on stage in Hungary. Marton took over leadership of the band, with his son Florin taking the second fiddle role. I struck up a long friendship with Marton after a chance meeting on the street in Cluj, where he had moved after a messy divorce, much like mine. Beer, boiled potatos, and the miseries of newly found singledom bound us. We had several years of fiddling together, during which I finally began to grasp the inner aesthetic of the Palatka style of music - a music in which modal melodies are not harmonized using minor chords at all. It is a style that is archaic by dint of its isolation - nobody ever demanded minor chords. Why use a D minor when an F major would do? The tension inherent in their harmonies is one of the most exciting facets of Transylvanian Gypsy music.
Marton died tragically in 2003 at a folk dance camp in Transylavania, and there was a lot of speculation that the tradition would die along with him. After all, it is getting harder for the village Gypsy bands to get wedding work, when for the same money more modern entertainment, such as a boom-box and some CDs, can be given to the bride and groom as well. But Marton's brother, Lorinc, moved up the ranks from Kontra fiddle to primas, and Florin mastered not only the lead fiddle, but learned Hungarian and English as well in order to reperesent the band in their newer role as international representatives of "Transylvanian folklore." And they do it damn well, as these picture from their monthly gig at the Fono in Budapest attest.
I'll be adding bits and pieces of more youtube recordings as I upload them... because really, if you don't actually watch how these guys bow and move together, you can't learn the music. Sarah Alden, the NY fiddler for the Luminescent Orchestrii, asked me how I managed to learn to play the slow table songs from Palatka. I answered... a bit in my cups... "Oh, it's all in the bowing, you just have to hang with them a bit and watch... and listen to the music until you really get it." How long did that take me? asked Sarah. "Hmm... for me, about 30 years..." Puma, who can be seen sitting in on kontra here, has been at it even longer. He's not even considered a revival flk musician in Palatka... he's actually become the real thing.
Pardon the shakey camera work... my little canon digital is the size of a pack of camels... but if you go to my youtube page, I'll be putting up bits of music that that little box of digitality has been stealing as I go.... I 've already added a bunch more cuts from Palatka, with different music to come from wherever I travel...
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