FANFARE CIOCARLIA VS. BOBAN & MARKO MARKOVIC, BALKAN BRASS BATTLE (ASPHALT TANGO)
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Feature

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The Guardian, Feature >>

If you've not noticed the craze for spiced-up Balkan brass bands, where have you been? Now the two leading outfits are in battle

    Marko ­Markovic of the Boban and Marko ­Markovic Orchestra. Photograph: Zsofia Raffay

    It has the air of a boxing match with a rowdy and expectant crowd. On the left, one trumpeter appears, on the right, another. They eye each other up and as you are distracted by the musical phrases they are swapping, an army of musicians appears behind each of them. It's the night after the Eurovision Song Contest, but you feel it's a much more fiercely fought competition that is about to take place.

    In the red corner – dressed in red shirts, black overcoats and dark hats – are Fanfare Ciocarlia from Romania, and in the blue corner – wearing stripy T-shirts and white loafers – are the Boban and Marko Markovi´c Orchestra from Serbia. This is the Balkan equivalent of a soundclash between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

    The contest is taking place on neutral ground. We're in Budapest, Hungary, and this is the first night of the Balkan Brass Battle. "Behind me you see the masters of Gypsy brass, Fanfare Ciocarlia," announces their sax-wielding frontman Oprica Ivancea. "We are ready to step into the ring and show we are the best in Europe and the world." On the other side, the trumpeter grimaces and responds: "I am Marko Markovic, son of Boban Markovic, and tonight we will show you there is only one king of Balkan brass." They toss a coin to see who will start.

    For those that haven't noticed, there's been something of a craze for the larger-than-life world of Balkan brass over the past 10 years. This isn't the sound of your UK colliery or marching band. The tradition comes from both Hapsburg and Turkish military bands that advanced and retreated across eastern Europe until the first world war. But since then, the music has been reclaimed by the people, spiced up, supercharged with firewater and turned into the soundtrack of parties and celebration.

    Over the past decade, the Boban Markovic Orchestra and Fanfare Ciocarlia have emerged as the star attractions on the scene – playing the same concert halls and festivals across Europe and beyond. They would hear of each other's exploits in Berlin, Barcelona, Tokyo, New York. They listened to each other's recordings and tried out each other's tunes. But they didn't hear each other in person until they were both invited to a Gypsy festival in Brussels in 2009. And, if anything, that increased the rivalry.

    It is Fanfare Ciocarlia who start with a Romanian tune that suddenly morphs into the Pink Panther theme, but not as you've ever heard it before. The urbane sophistication of that snaking sax tune is transformed into a crazy circus with punching horns, rattling percussion belted out on a marching drum with a cymbal attached to the top, and Oprica Ivancea blowing his sax in the air and looking as if he's pouring water – or perhaps something stronger – down his throat. The Markovics answer with a popular Serbian song that has a distinctly oriental feel. It's a tighter, more disciplined sound – a lean, mean trumpet machine. At this point it feels like cockney geezers you have to love, followed by Chelsea wideboys you love to hate.

    The Boban and Marko Markovic Orchestra are the aristocrats of Balkan brass. They come from the post-industrial town of Vladicin Han in what's known as the "Trubacka republika" (Trumpet republic), the heartland of Serbian Gypsy brass. Boban's grandfather, Pavle Krstic, was one of the region's top band leaders, sometimes playing for the Serbian king. Boban's father gave him a trumpet as a boy to stop him playing football on the street. As a teenager he was playing for weddings, and at 21 he won Second Trumpet prize at Guca, the extraordinary trumpet festival that is the mecca for Serbian brass fans. Over the next 10 years he won all the big prizes several times, until he stopped competing and was made an "honorary citizen" of Guca. "Winning in Guca gives you recognition among friends and rivals that you are something," says Boban. "If playing music in Serbia is your profession, then winning in Guca is extremely important."

    Marko started playing trumpet aged five and officially took over leadership of the band in 2006. But on stage they share the limelight, diving around each other, Marko with a neatly shaved moustache, and Boban with his wild, curly hair.

    If the Markovics are the aristocrats of Balkan brass, Fanfare Ciocarlia are the peasant upstarts. Zece Prajini (Ten Fields), their village in northeast Romania, was given to the Gypsies by the local landowner in the 19th century when slavery of the Roma in Romania was abolished. It's an attractive village of simple houses with a bar-cum-general store and a population of 400, all of them Gypsy.

    Fanfare Ciocarlia's Ivancea also plays a tiny E flat clarinet, giving a shrill, squealy sound to their dances with a foot-tapping power. The huge wrap-around helicons playing bass in the backline are antique German instruments taken to Romania between the wars. Their music is full of colour and texture, and often played at breakneck speed.

    While in Serbia there's the Guca festival and brass bands can be heard at every wedding, in Romania it's the fiddle that dominates folk music. The "fanfare" (brass band) tradition was confined to the northeastern province of what was Moldavia – one reason being that brass instruments were more suited to hands calloused from the region's heavy agricultural work. But these days, there are not many brass bands left, and while the Markovics are stars in Serbia, Fanfare Ciocarlia are hardly known in Romania.

    If it hadn't been for the chance visit in 1996 of a German sound recordist, Henry Ernst, who is now their manager, Fanfare Ciocarlia probably wouldn't exist today. He organised a concert in Germany which, to the band, seemed a crazy idea. "It was as if we'd been asked to do a concert on Mars," says Ivancea. "In Romania nobody was very interested in this music, but outside, they loved it."

    Meanwhile, around the same time, Emir Kusturica's allegorical film, Underground, about the breakup of Yugoslavia, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes in 1995. The Boban Markovic Orchestra played on its hugely successful soundtrack, which helped Boban gain a cult interest abroad. Tunes from the film quickly became Balkan brass favourites, performed at the end of almost every show. But in Yugoslavia, the 1990s were the Milosevic years, which led to the breakup of the country, nationalist politics and the Nato bombings of Belgrade in 1999. This kept Serbian music and musicians – such as Boban Markovic – off the international circuit. So Fanfare Ciocarlia became well known abroad but unknown at home, and Boban Markovic was a star at home but unknown abroad. Another reason for the intense rivalry of the past decade.

    After exchanging melodies on stage, a "conference" is suggested and accords are reached – a rather easier process than with the drawn-out conflicts of the 90s. By this time, the audience is ready to dance and the momentum is unstoppable. The sound and energy levels leap stratospherically as all 24 musicians fire up the hottest pipework on earth.

     05/20/11 >> go there

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