Track Listing

1. Mahalageasca - Mahala Rai Banda
2. Cintec de Dragoste Si Joc - Taraf de Haïdouks
3. Mundo Cocek - Boban Markovic Orkestar
4. Lenorije Chaje - Ivo Papasov, Yuri Yunakov
5. Di, Murgule, Di
6. Opa Cupa - Saban Bajramovic, Mostar Sevdah Reunion
7. Lume, Lume - Fanfare Ciocãrlia
8. Pranvera
9. Romano Oro - Usnija Jasarova, Esma Redzepova
10. To Tsantiraki - Eleni Vitali
11. Espresso
12. Félix Kolo - Boban Markovic Orkestar
13. Kadife - Richard Hagopian, Omar Faruk Tekbilek
14. Taraf - Shukar Collective
15. Sofyisky Kjuchek - Ibro Lolov
16. Rom - Nikos Kypourgos, , Kostas Pavlidis
17. Tsiganka Sam Mala

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #180316 in Music
• Released on: 2005-08-15
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Album Description
The Gypsy Road stretches from Rajasthan, India to Andalucia, Spain and beyond, but it is the Balkan countries of Eastern Europe that are home to the largest Rom populations. Often scape-goated and caught in the middle of the twentieth century's worst injustices, from Belgrade to Bucharest to Skopje the Rom have had a profound impact on Balkan culture and music. Throughout the region, Gypsy music is Balkan music, transcending borders and ethnicities: energetic brass bands, violin and cimbolom virtuosos and captivating voices, The Rough Guide To The Music Of Balkan Gypsies has it all.

Customer Reviews

A musical people on the move
Here you have a medley of gypsy ('romany') music from the Balkans, which includes Romania, Bulgaria, the modern states carved out of the old Yugoslavia, and Albania, Greece, and also Turkey.

Although 'touched up' a bit with orchestration, etc.., you get the energetic sound of a vibrant people's musical tradition, a culture unwilling to bow to assimilation, let alone extermination. Persecuted from Russia to Ireland, and in recent memory, the target of genocide, from the German fascists in the 1930s and early 40s, to their modern counterparts in eastern Europe since the collapse of the Soviet empire, in the 1990s and since, the gypsies have survived. And they remain resilient.

This compilation, in great sound, full of life, full of emotion, from joyous to melancholic, is a fitting record to a musical traditon which influenced so profoundly the music of eastern Europe, absorbing and adding to the traditional music of their locality, be it Christian, Jewish, or Islamic.