Balkan Trafik 2010 :: 8th, 9th, 10th & 11th april

Musique

Hit the piano

Khade Sukar

Romano bijo

Jaj Devla Mamo

Presse

Extrait de "The Scotsman"

Hungarian Roma band Parno Graszt in their first UK appearance blew the roof off the Spiegeltent showing just what a real gypsy group are about, taking us into intense music of weddings, funerals, christenings and every festivity in between. This was very much a family affair, with the eight of them singing while playing guitars, accordion, wooden spoons and electric tamboura and vivaciously dancing, radiating an exuberant energy.

Their singing involved an upfront style with one solo voice joined by another, using vigorous timbric group harmonies for chorus lines. Every tune was underpinned by an amusing instrument consisting of two small battered milk churns being slapped while player István Németh created a constant stream of throaty mouth music like a resonant vocal bass as if he was talking to an animal.

With the two women dressed in traditional long, red, flowing skirts and barefoot, there was a definite feel of the outdoors as they joined the audience in the dancing. There was an unassailable conviction about everything Parno Graszt did, a natural passion that had the whole audience in the palm of their hands. And while one felt slight unease about a final dance that involved a man swinging a stick around a woman so that she had to keep at least one pace ahead, this was a compelling set by one of the best gypsy bands I've seen in a long time.

Extrait de "The Herald"

Music review

Gypsy Arts Festival Scotland

Parno Graszt

30 August

Star rating: *****

Catching Parno Graszt when they have something to celebrate must be quite an experience because this Hungarian gypsy troupe certainly know how to turn a gig into a party. There's a natural exuberance and bounce to their music as, largely predicated on the tambura's bright, chiming sound, songs are taken up and given as many choruses as the mood dictates.

Often the mood will be set by band members whose roles are multiple. The spoons player, for example, is an amazing dancer whose skipping, foot-slapping moves join the dots between the South African gumboot dance and Appalachian ham-boning. Later he'll produce a pole and perform a don't-try-this-at-home routine - part juggling, part martial art. Less concerned with skill is the mother figure, a woman who's clearly used to getting things done when she wants them doing and who imperiously fills the dancefloor.

While all this movement is happening, the band plays and sings on, introducing flamenco-like flavours on guitar and accordion and revealing a variety of vocal tones that, if they were singing in French or English, might pass for Cajun or blues. Whatever language he uses - and it seems to contain a vocalese of his own devising - the percussionist who beats his palm on two water jugs while maintaining a constant flow of improvised mouth music in tandem with the bassist's slapped lines is the source of much of the group's energy. Not your standard rhythm section, perhaps, but then not much is standard in the Parno Graszt manifesto.