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Written in fRoots issue 275, 2006
 

ROMICA PUCEANU & THE GORE BROTHERS
Sounds From A Bygone Age Vol.2
Asphalt Tango CD-ATR 1006 (2006)

Born in 1926 and killed in a car accident on the way home from a wedding gig in 1996, Romica Puceanu was the doyenne of Romanian Roma lautari singers, merging Romanian folksongs with Turkish influences. She began singing in cafes, and rose to prominence working with her cousins, fiddler Aurel Gore and his piano-accordionist and singer brother Victor who, sons of top restaurant violinist Gore Ionescu, took his first name as their stage surname and led the most popular wedding band for Roma weddings in the Bucharest area until Aurel’s death in 1989.
      This richly deserved release is the second in Asphalt Tango’s excellent series of reissues of classic recordings (the first featured lautari violinist Ion Petre Stoican). The tracks were recorded, very well, by Electrecord between 1964 and 1973. Puceanu’s rich chest-voice is a perfectly-judged delight, winding and soaring in a passionate, sobbing style not dissimilar to Bosnian sevdalinka.
      It floats over a restrained, restlessly chugging backing of two violins, accordion, cobza (the Romanian short-necked oud-like lute, nowadays sadly usually replaced by guitar), steadily propulsive picked or bowed double bass, and the masterly scamper and chop of the cymbalom, here played by Marin Marangros, that holds everything together in lautari bands, joined on five numbers by trumpet. The Gore brothers rise through it with intros and occasional solo breaks, and Victor, who as well as accordionist was highly regarded singer with a wide vocal range up to a smooth high falsetto, takes a couple of vocal leads. (Now aged 75, he lives in a small flat in Bucharest; artistry and thousands of record sales didn’t bring great wealth).
      Things have changed so much, and continue to change, in the Balkans; Asphalt Tango, the Berlin-based agency for East European, mainly Roma music which has since 2002 become a label too, are doing a great service in celebrating great musicians whose work was previously virtually unknown outside their home country. A singer and a band like this if playing now would be fêted, and there’s nothing scratchy about these tracks, they jump out of the speakers as fresh and full as if recorded today.
      www.asphalt-tango.de


© 2006 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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