Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Kundër dhunës ndaj grave dhe për paqen, në Requiem 4 Mariposas- By Davi Lamastra - SHJF 2017
Friday, May 28, 2010
"Orges & The Ockus-Rockus Band" has a goal!

We want to fresh up the Balkans’ Beat, mixing it with a great deal of Rock & Roll and Gipsy spices. That is our answer to the question regarding the origins of the Balkans. As known: The gate to the Balkans is Vienna. Geographically! But where does it end? May be some where in Tennessee? That’s what you will think, listening to "Orges & The Ockus-Rockus Band" 々 surrounding the exceptional guitarist and songwriter Orges Toce. And some how the Balkans always enjoyed black leather suits and the rock & roll look. Now the scenery is completed, whereas the great "Boban Markovic" invites "Elvis the Pelvis" to join him in an Albanian cafe… and J. J. Cale can’t fight shaking to the 7/8 Beat. So if you might start looking for a name for all this, just call it "Orges & The Ockus-Rockus Band"!!!
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Te japim kontributin tone...
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Workshops
One of the things happening at the Shkodra Jazz are the workshops with the music students of the local high school of arts. The lessons take place at a class on the second floor of this
I heard, for example, that Brazilian pianist Roberto Hasbun had explained the slow and low volume bossa nova with the fact that it was developed in poor areas packed with houses with very thin walls. Any time musicians wanted to get loud, the neighbors would complain. Hence, the bossa nova.
I attended the one held yesterday by Javier Galiana and Spice Barberechos, a band that played later in the evening at Shkodra’s main concert hall, the Migjeni Theater. This was the typical classroom filled in with hormone high teenagers. Professors would sit in front of the musicians. The second and third row of chairs were filled in with students who seemed to be interested in what went around, while the last two rows were with mostly boys interesting in making some noise.
Galiana, who explained the flamenco rhythm, and how he fuses flamenco into jazz, also induced the children to do the
There was some hilarity. While Galiana, who is a pianist and composer, was trying to explain one specific rhythm and how it was fused with blues, one professor of the school, of the name Rafael Shabani, jumped up from where he was sitting on the first row, and turned to students, as if he wanted to explain to them what the Spanish musician was saying. But he was off the mark, he was saying something like “Music is constant processing and refining of material,” and he was jittery. I thought he was trying to make an impression. Some students on the back said, Bravo, just for fun. It looked a bit like the unsexy part of the Italian sexy comedies of the 70s.
Correction, Dimitroula Mou Iassou, is indeed titled Dimitroula Mou, and sang by Haris Alexiou.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Dimitroula Mou Iassou
A bis at tonight’s concert at Piazza by Nico di Batista and Sokol Prekalori was a tune that Albanians of a certain age are very familiar with. It is a Greek folk song, Dimitroula Mou Iassou.
The history of it is that sometime in the early 80s, several Greek bands had come to
Thirty years later, there was a rapprochement, hence those few Greek bands coming to
Sokol Prekalori was familiar with the tune, and Nico di Batista played accompaniment, to continuous applauses.
Tonight’s concert amassed most followers at the Piazza, where about fifty people huddled sitting while the seats at the bars were filled. “The festival has invigorated the Piazza,” says Mentor Bushati, a bartender. “In a normal evening, this street stands mostly empty.” Indeed, it was full of people, and not only the hundreds of strollers who do the evening walk in, walk out routine.
The repertoire was rich, Piazzolla, Al di Meola, the Balkans tune of Dimitroula, and other tunes that continued for about 80 minutes.
We got lucky, the rain, which started at 5.30 pm, had abated fifteen minutes later, and stopped at about 6. The concert started late, at about 7.15, but it went on well, and luckily, there was no rain.
Late evening concert
At 10 p.m., at the Millennium cinema of the city, pianist Daniele Tione and trumpet player Alberto Mandarini will have the late evening concert.
Kitare e pare dhe akompanjiment ne te njejten kohe
Drummer and Painter/Baterist dhe bojaxhi
Gigi Biolcati, a drummer who has been to Shkodra Jazz fests every year, is a painter three weeks of a month, while the fourth, goes to play jazz all over
“Germans are the best listeners of jazz,” says Biolcati, he says about the latter aspect. Of the first, he says he had learned painting buildings from his father, and enjoys it.
When he is asked what kind of music does he play, he says he plays jazz, and the others retort, “You play cold jazz, or hot jazz?”
Cold jazz can, apparently be the intellectualized jazz made from the last quarter of last century to this one, while the ‘hot jazz’ carries the familiar rhythms of be-bop and the standards, one can guess.
Gigi Biolcati, nje perkusionist qe ka qene ne Shkodra Jazz cdo vit, eshte bojaxhi tre jave te muajit, dhe javen e katert shkon per te luajtur ne te gjitha skenat e Evropes.
“Gjermanet jane publiku me i mire,” thote. Ndersa zanatin e bojaxhiut e ka mesuar nga i ati, dhe i pelqen.
Kur e pyesin c’muzike luan, thote se luan xhaz, dhe pastaj i thone, “xhaz te ftohte, apo te nxehte?”
Ne fakt xhaz i ftohte mund te quhet ai qe u luajt cerekun e dyte te shekullit te njezete e deri tani, me intelektual dhe i ndikuar nga kompozicioni kontemporan, ndersa mund te mendohet qe ‘hot jazz’ duhet te kete ritmet familiare te be-bopit, dhe te standarteve jazz.
