[FA Worldmusic] Kerekes Band from Hungary seeking U.S. dates

[Angel Romero]

I am posting this here in case any presenter or agent is interested

Angel Romero
World Music Central

-----

I have just been advised that Kerekes Band from Hungary are going to get 
their transatlantic flights sponsored by the Hungarian ministry for 
Culture for a couple of concerts at the Ochos Rios Jazz festival in 
Jamaica for dates between the 8th and 15th June. As the Hungarian 
national airline, Malev, doesnt have a direct flight to Jamaica we will 
have to make a connection in the US on the way out and back, therefore 
we will be available for some shows in the United States with only local 
transport needed.



Malev flies direct to the following cites from Budapest: Atlanta, 
Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, 
New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, Washington, Phoenix, Orlando & 
Philadelphia so any possible concerts close to these airports should be 
fairly easy to get to.



We will be able to accept gigs prior to the 8th June but not after the 
17th as Kerekes are due to play at expo 2008 in Spain on the 19th



If you think you might be able to arrange a concert or two, or a whole 
tour, please get in touch as soon as possible as we would like to get 
our flights booked very shortly. We will be in a position to confirm any 
dates almost immediately.



Kerekes are also keen to participate in any collaborative arrangements 
with American based artists whilst there and are always willing to 
conduct music workshops where time allows.



If you would like to find out more about Kerekes Band or experience 
their music please visit; http://www.feileafrica.com/Kerekes.htm where 
you will find some good video/audio samples and links.



I have attached a press release below.



Many thanks for your time  Phil Bergan, admin at feileafrica.com





The Shepherds Flute, a Pact with the Devil, and Transylvanian Rock: 
Hungarys Kerekes Funkifies Tradition with New/Old Tunes

Just like the dancefloor DJs of today, the members of Hungarian band 
Kerekes are always searching for ways to turn up the heat in their 
tanchazok (dance houses). So ten years ago, when they were still 
teenagers, they travelled to the countryside on foot, by bus, and by 
train and just like Bartsk, collected living traditional folk songs in 
the last minute before all the masters were gone and the tradition would 
be lost forever. They spent eight years looking for new material and 
recorded over 200 hours of songs, all with the goal of bringing new-old 
songs to their audiences.

While the band continues to keep traditions alive for their regular 
dance nights, they have plugged in on their new album Pimasz (which 
means cheeky), following in the footsteps of bands worldwide who are 
connecting their roots sounds to amplifiers and effects, without losing 
the spirit of their ancestors. With a strong basis in the music of 
Moldova and the Gyimes region of Romania, two areas with ancient 
Hungarian ties, Kerekes (pronounced ker-ay-KESH, with a rolled r) has 
also taken cues from Jimi Hendrix and the JBs, developing their own 
voice, though the band is all instrumental.

For some, Kerekes introduces audiences to melodies and dance rhythms 
rarely heard elsewhere. For others, they take familiar sounds and update 
them. But all listeners notice that the band taps the magic of the 
ancient shepherds flute, conjuring sounds never heard before on this 
planet. While artists like Shantel and OMFO have used electronic 
wizardry to bring Romanian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian sounds to the dance 
floor, Kerekes prolific live performance (including 200 concerts in 
Hungary in the past two years; appearances in Hungarys top venues, The 
Palace of Arts and The Music Academy in Budapest; and performances at 
prestigious venues across Europe) taps another type of magical 
music-making. Shepherds are the inheritors, warriors, and carriers of 
the ancient knowledge of the shamans, says Zsombor Fehir, the bands 
virtuosic flutist and leader. They used their magic to heal or place 
curses. They could read the future. Zsombor carries knowledge from the 
flute and bagpipe player Istvan Pal (age 87), who is probably the last 
keeper of this ancient knowledge in Hungary.

In Transylvania, the flute can magically return a lost herd to its 
shepherd (the melody on Searching brings this to mind). In Gyimes, it 
is said that a dead bear can be revitalized by his master with his 
flute. In Transdanubia, a miller being attacked by robbers used his 
flute to call a pack of dogs who rush to his aid shredding the robbers 
to pieces, a story embodied on the track titled Kit pasztor or Two 
Shepherds. The track features the |ttgardon, a cello shaped rhythm 
instrument whose strings are hit with a stick and a special three-foot, 
three-holed flute. This longflute is still used in Somogy County in 
Western Hungary and was brought over from outer Mongolia.

The way Zsombor plays brings to mind the epic Robert Johnson tale when 
he says, To become a good pipe player, the shepherd has to enter into 
collusion with the devil. They say he takes his skin to the market and 
then the pipe can play itself. Zsombor plays a shepherds flute on 
which he installed extra keys to make it chromatic. After playing the 
flute for about one and a half years, old relatives mentioned that both 
his grandfather and great-grandfather had been shepherd flute players. 
He later found out that all the way back to the 1700s, all his male 
ancestors had been shepherds, which means they had been flute players as 
well.



On their journeys, the band found a village in Transylvania where just 
about everybody makes flutes, about 200 families. We were looking for a 
particular flute-maker. Upon presenting a flute I had, everybody said 
that even though they hadnt made this one, they could make an identical 
one, though admittedly it would not have such a great sound, says 
Zsombor. It took three days to find the maker of this original 
prototype, and there just like Aladdin- I was awaited by heaps of 
flutes. Sometimes I had three flutes hanging from my mouth, in a frenzy 
to try as many as I possibly could.

Another time Zsombor went to the hillside around Fedimes, his 
grandparents village, just to play the flute for his own pleasure. The 
next day villagers told us that they had heard the music even in the far 
end of the village, remembers Zsombor. They had stopped working and 
sat out to listen to it, bringing back a sense of the old times when 
shepherds used to do that regularly.



I learned the traditional way of flute-playing from old peasants, says 
Zsombor. Having turned the flute chromatic, it is now suitable not only 
for pentatonic folk songs. When I realized that each shepherd flute 
player is a local Jimi Hendrix both in their manner of playing and 
musical re-creation, I saw the fusion of these two styles as completely 
legitimate.

Other band members have also adapted both instruments and playing 
styles. Csaba Namor plays the koboz, a lute of Middle Eastern origin. 
By now, all the Hungarian koboz players rest in peace, and they left 
behind only a couple of recordings, says Csaba. In the absence of 
masters, only rock music could show us the way. Meanwhile, the band is 
proud to have convinced the largest instrument factory in Transylvania 
to restart the production of the koboz. The instruments Middle Eastern 
origins can be heard on Medina, named for a sweet Hungarian red wine 
from Eger, the bands hometown.

The viola has been used all over the Hungarian-speaking territories. 
The Transylvanian viola is built with a flat, not curved, bridge, with 
three strings, explains viola-player Akos Csarns. It is played with a 
stronger bow made from the hair of a stallion. This allows the player to 
bow all three strings simultaneously in a strong rhythmic manner, 
playing loud chords. Akos plays it as if he had a Reggae Fender 
Rhodes in his hands, with his bow imitating a buzz saw.

The drum was introduced in Moldova from brass bands in the 1950s. It was 
played similarly to the tapan in the Balkans. Viktor Fehir had played 
this traditional drum for years until he realized he couldnt play funk 
on a drum from Moldova, so he bought a drum-set. Since rhythms in 
Hungarian music are quite fixed, we drew on rhythms of other musical 
cultures, mainly those of popular roots, explains the younger Viktor. 
The band is rounded out with Csaba Ksnya on electric bass. Four years in 
the making, the overall sound of Pimasz has earned them a 2007 Top of 
the World acknowledgment from Songlines magazine, a result of 200,000 
readers votes which put them in the company of The Gotan Project, Ali 
Farka Toure, and Toumani Diabate.

We knocked on the doors of old peasants houses not because we wanted 
to make world music but because we wanted to experience the real folk 
music of our ancestry, concludes Zsombor Fehir. At the time, our main 
motivation was to find these newly-collected tunes that our dance 
audiences could not possibly have heard anywhere else. However, beyond 
all the sophisticated reasons we could give, the heart of the matter is 
that we were simply spellbound by the amazing music we found, and we 
could not help just purely enjoying every minute of both listening to 
our old masters and playing with them. But now, were going to funkify 
this tradition!



In recognition of Kerekes efforts to modernise whilst preserving these 
old traditions of Hungarian music they were given the title of 
Ambassadors of Hungarian Culture for 2008 the European year of 
Intercultural Dialogue by Katalin Bogyay, the State Secretary for 
International Affairs of the Hungarian Ministry of Education and 
Culture, the only band to be honoured by this title in Hungary.



There are two kinds of men sparking around folk music. The first loves 
it very much and he would close it into a museum at all costs, the other 
loves it so much that he would take it home at any price. The Kerekes 
took it home. Tamas Szarka - Ghymes Band



FeileAfrica Events Ltd

Cork - Ireland

Tel/Fax: +353 (0)21 450 1737

Mob: +353 (0)87 67 15151

Email: admin at feileafrica.com

Web: www.feileafrica.com





-- 
Angel Romero
World Music Central
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