"breathtaking technical virtuosity"

[pfrank]

This is something everyone will enjoy, or at least be amazed by: Fanfare Ciocãrlia. They are a jypsy brass band from Romania. They started as a local band playing 20 hour wedding gigs and the like, but are world travelers now and are getting quite well known. I found the CD "Iag Bari" at Borders Books while Christmas shopping. Turnes out a friend of mine saw them at Saunders Theatre (part of Harvard University Cambridge MA). I wish I had known of them at the time!
To quote the CD notes: "With up to 200 beats per minute Fanfare Ciocãrlia blow every musical frame. Techno on battered brass, too aggressive to be folk music, too masterly to be punk, out of lungs big as balloons: Powerful, tender, dangerous." And, "...Costel Vasilescu, known in Romania as heir to Hopa Mitica, the best trumpeter of Romania...was drawn to Fanfare Ciocãrlia by what he calls their 'specific staccato technique. A technique you need for extremely fast dances.' Remember the words of Fanfare's senior member, Ioan Ivancca: 'We're the fastest of them all.'" He aint kidding. The tounging technique of the baratone and tuba players alone gives me the shivers. They seem to use old European rotary valve low horns, bell side facing, and piston trumpets. From the pictures, it looks like to them a good horn is one that works, and they may have been passed down from father to son in years past. Before the fame. A movie has been made about them called "Brass On Fire." They have 3 CDs out the German label, Pirahna. On the web: http://www.piranha.de Check them out if you like happy surprises.