Re: Tsiganoff Grichisher tantz

[Pete Rushefsky <klezbanjo...>]

Owen Davidson had posted a few years ago about Tsiganoff's decendents starring 
in the Robert Duvall film "Angelo, My Love"-- film about Roma in NYC (and it's 
worth seeing).  In the movie, we see Mishka's grave and at the end of the film 
is a picture of Mishka with his accordion. I seem to recall (can't remember the 
source) that Tsiganoff was a fluent Yiddish speaker, and was featured on a 
Yiddish language radio program (Henry-- is that true?).
I'm no expert on the klezmer/Greek relationship, but remember a wonderful day 
at KlezKanada listening to Zev Feldman/Marty Schwartz discuss it.  In the last 
year, Brave Old World did a concert series in Europe with a Greek band 
exploring the same topic.   The connection of Bessarabia with the Ottoman 
empire has a lot to do with it-- Greek boyars were picked by the Ottomans to 
run much of what is now Romania/Moldova, so you can be sure the court music was 
tantalizing.  Think Paul Gifford has pointed out that prior to 1922 population 
exchange in Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey), Greek bands were called kompanyes-- 
word used in Bessarabia.  Instrumentation of Greek Anatolian bands was 
frequently fiddle, dulcimer and cello/bass (again, similar to Bessarabia).  
Also Paul theorizes that the Greek sandouri a la franca (the more modern Greek 
dulcimer with Western chromatic tuning, as opposed to the older sandouri a la 
turca which could accomodate non-Western scales) was likely derived from the 
tsimbl of migrating Romanian Jews. 
Ernie Gruner <erniegru (at) mira(dot)net> wrote:Please can anyone supply me 
with more information about :
- Mishka Tsiganoff
- Grichisher tantz
- Relationships between Klezmer and Greek music or musicians.
- other examples of Klezmer/Greek crossover

I have the cassette "Klezmer Pioneers - European and American Recordings -
1905-1952" with notes by Henry Sapoznik and Dick Spotswood. This notes that
Tsiganoff ("gyspy") recorded Grichisher tantz in 1929 New York, and that he
was a popular accordion soloist. More information which I can't find in my
yet-to-be catalogued klezmer CD/book collection. ooops.

thankyou Ernie Gruner
klezmer violinist - Klezmeritis
Melbourne, Australia (where I went to school most students were Greek or
Jewish)

ps Recently at the Australian National Folk Festival I gave introductory
klezmer workshops which had over 100 participants each session. I teach
tunes in a style similar to the way Merlin Shepherd did at the KlezKamp West
I attended in 1998.




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