Mahala Rai Banda
Wild Gypsy Brass from Romania!
Mahala is the common name gypsies use to designate the areas where they form the majority of the population, and which sometimes develop into small towns.
Raï is a word of Arab origin borrowed by the Rom populations which travelled through Persia then Egypt and whose migration ended in Romania in the plain of Walachia. These generations of gypsy musicians (lautari) are considered to be a sort of aristocracy among gypsies and the term raï designates someone whose authority or know-how is recognized by all.
Banda designates an orchestra composed of various instruments (violin, trumpet, saxophone, cymbalom, percussion instruments, accordions) which belongs to no particular genre. It is neither a fanfare nor a folk band, but can be either according to circumstance. Traditional music from the countryside meets the radically modernist style of gypsy music from Bucharest, oriental ornamentation, modern rhythms and the more complex rhythms from the Balkans, and harmonies from the Banat of Moldavia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania and Turkey.
In Romania, the most famous and the most gifted musicians live in two villages. In Clejani, just south-west of Bucharest, the violinists, cymbalists, double bass players and other accordion players notably formed the extraordinary Taraf de Haidouks. In Zece Prajini, north-east of the capital in Moldavia, you can find the greatest density of wind players per square meter, including the brass players of the famous Fanfare Ciocarlia. It is in these two villages, lost in the dust, the mud or the ice, according to the season, that you find the crème de la crème, the instrumentalists who are half-genius, half-rascal, capable of stirring up a wedding party with a single solo launched at supersonic speed. Knowing this, how do you find THE great Gypsy group, a sort of Balkan equivalent of the Memphis Horns with the rhythm section from Muscle Shoals, combining power and finesse, groove and virtuosity? It’s easy, just bring together the musicians from Clejani and of Zece Prajini! The story of MAHALA RAI BANDA begins at the end of the nineties with Aurel Ionita forming the group Rom Bengale in Bucharest. Their success had hardly begun, however, when this ensemble of young musicians was plagued and divided by addiction problems. Aurel then created the initial line-up of the Mahala Rai Banda – a name inspired by the Gypsy suburbs of the big Romanian cities – which released a CD on Crammed Discs in 2004. Now the band is back with its mix of Romanian musical traditions, oriental pop, rumba Catalan, reggae and manele (Roma pop). The blend is intoxicating!
