[Dixielandjazz] Greek music information

[David Richoux]

The jazz connection is this: Klezmer met and mingled with Balkan/Greek 
music styles in Central Europe in the 1700s to 1800s, the 
Klezmer/Yiddish performers emmigrated to the USA in the late 1800s and 
early 1900s, got jobs writing songs on Tin-Pan Alley and performing 
vaudeville, greatly influencing all forms of popular American music 
from Ragtime to Jazz to Rock (probably not much influence on Hip-Hop 
;-)

It is all there in the essay I just posted   ( 
http://www.franklondon.com/brotherhood.html )

Dave Richoux
On Feb 9, 2005, at 3:48 PM, OArkas at aol.com wrote:

>  In a message dated 2/9/05 2:53:12 PM, jazzboard at hotmail.com writes:
>
>
>
>> But for western music with REALLY complex rhythmic elements don't 
>> overlook
>> the Greeks, who can even dance to 5/4 time signatures as well as 
>> other odd
>> elements (7 beats to the measure, etc.). And western classical music 
>> offers
>> great rhythmic complexities (Stravinsky, a Roosian for example) and
>> contemporary serious composers galore are busy fooling around with 
>> just this
>> element of music and most of them are not of African extraction.
>>
>>
>
> snip

>    What does that have to do with Jazz?  Maybe nothing, but
> certainly our western civilization had lots of complexity in both 
> meters and
> scales, long before jazz came around.
> I don't want to do a big lecture, and I really hope I'm not boring 
> folks 
> [big grin]  but what about improvisation.  That's the biggest part of 
> our folk
> music!!!  Embellishment and improvisation.  The big difference is that 
> our solos
> don't follow the chord progression, but instead work within the mode 
> (or
> scale).
> I think I love OKOM because in some ways it has the same freedom as my 
> Greek
> folk music.  Now, I just have to learn the "rules" and try to play 
> some of
> this OKOM on my Albert clarinets!!!!
> Thanks,