The origins of rebetiko, 16 years on

Positions & oppositions
1

I reread the thread The origins of rebetiko (II), which fell silent in April 2010, and I think it’s worth reopening.

It began with Savvopoulos’s article on the “first rebetika”: around 60 songs recorded on 78-rpm records between 1906 and 1930, most of them made up of stray couplets. It quickly became something larger: an attempt to agree on what we mean when we say “rebetiko”. @nikos_politis, @elenh, @kwstas_ferris and many others offered periodisations, terminology and objections. The thread ended with a question from @alexinoos that went unanswered:

Perhaps we should investigate not only the origins of the genre, but also the origins of the idea we have of it?

A lot has changed since then. Recordings from that period are now much easier to hear, and the question of terminology keeps resurfacing in new threads, without ever being settled.

Three questions for anyone who wants to join in:

  1. Where do you place the beginning? @kwstas_ferris wrote that rebetiko was “conceived” in 1922, with the meeting of the Smyrnaean refugees and Piraeus, and was “born” in 1932, with the triumph of the bouzouki. Do you agree, or does it begin elsewhere: with the mourmourika of the 19th century, in Smyrna and Constantinople, or in the yuroúkika tunes?
  2. The image of the underworld. @elenh had objected that the emphasis on hashish, tekes and stabbings gives a distorted picture of the earliest rebetika, leaving out love, life abroad and poverty. Is that still true of the way rebetiko is presented today?
  3. The origins of the genre or the origins of the idea? If the image we have of rebetiko was shaped to a great extent by lectures, books and later artists, which of the two questions seems more useful to you today?

Those of you who took part in the original discussion, tell us whether anything has changed in the way you see it. Those who joined later, tell us how you view the subject.

3 Likes
2

Shall I be unkind? No conclusion is going to be reached, and this applies to all three questions, as well as Alexinou’s.

(Personally, though, I will refrain from any further discussion, as I believe that no new evidence has come to light from 2010 to the present day.)

3

Very briefly, I’ll refer you to the books by Stavros Kourousis (From the Tamboura to the Bouzouki, Volumes A and B, and Adespota), which have contributed quite a few new pieces of evidence and interpretations. I also think that evidence has been presented here on the forum, along with discussions about it.

1 Like
4

There is always room for new information and approaches, Niko, especially after the thread was inactive for 16 years. Besides, there may also be new members who can contribute interesting ideas. In any case, it would be interesting to compile sources with research references on this subject!

@liga_rosa is trying to start a discussion about new perspectives and ideas.
It is interesting that Kourousis has also put forward some interpretations. Since he is a member of the forum too, perhaps he could give us some insights. @stavros_k

3 Likes
5

Stavros Kourousis has some very interesting theories on the subject. I think he advocates 1890 or thereabouts. It’s a very interesting topic.

6

It was mainly a response to this.

1 Like
7

Here, I don’t think there’s any agreement on exactly which repertoire counts as “rebetiko”.. When Hatzidakis gave his well-known lecture, he was mainly thinking of songs from his own era; Voulgaris–Vantarakis talk about “Smyrnaic and Piraeus rebetiko”, while others would call only the Piraeus style “rebetiko”..

2 Likes
8

Personally, I believe that the roots of rebetiko go much deeper than the 19th century. One could say that they reach back to the point when cities—as centres in the sense that we understand cities today—were created. The lives of their inhabitants became distinct from those of the “countryside”. These changes also altered the way people entertained themselves and expressed themselves. I do not consider rebetiko to be exclusively connected with the bouzouki. We have examples of rebetiko being played on lyres, tambouras and other traditional instruments—in other words, on whatever instrument the particular player had available. I suspect that people also sang rebetiko a cappella, without instrumental accompaniment. So, to me, this music is one continuous thread, which I do not believe was ever broken, except in the modern era because of technology.

Now I agree with Eleni regarding the subject matter. Here I will use traditional folk music as an example, because I believe there was a parallel development. Just as traditional folk music deals with every subject—love, life abroad, prison, and so on—“rebetiko”, as part of urban popular song, does not need to “invent” new subjects. On the contrary, it makes use of couplets that are already familiar and widespread.

Personally, I believe that the “problems” we have with periodisation and clear-cut dates have to do with the bouzouki. This musical tradition existed long before the bouzouki appeared and became established as an instrument. To me, the bouzouki period is only a drop in the ocean, chronologically speaking, in the course of rebetiko.

These are just my initial thoughts.

9

Let me share a thought:

Leaving aside which repertoire is rebetiko and which is not — something I cannot answer precisely — I’ve noticed that discussion and research on rebetiko remain Greece-centred. In other words, we are still trying to define rebetiko, each in our own way, but probably strictly within some form of Greekness. It is an issue that remains somewhat taboo. I wonder whether we should more actively acknowledge its Ottoman roots as well, even when they are not directly connected to Greekness. For example, wandering tunes were not sung only by Greek speakers from the coastal regions; there probably weren’t specifically Greek tunes, but rather local (Ottoman?) melodies that anyone might sing in their own language. So, if we want to define its roots, I believe we should move away from a solely Greece-centred approach and look at the traditions of related regions.

3 Likes
11

There is a very good take on the word “rebetis” – “rebetiko” by one of the leading figures of the period, Bayanteras. You can hear him in the interview in the Kounadis archive, Interview with Dimitris Gogos, or Bayanteras, Part B, sixth section, “6. Manges and related concepts”.

I’m also including the link: https://vmrebetiko.gr/item/?id=1295 .

Ah… Re Beti.
At 45 seconds.

Only laïko music!

1 Like
12

To be honest, this is the first time I’ve heard this version. But that has to do with the name.

As for its origins, common sense tells us that we can’t investigate them from a Greek-centric perspective, as @alk also pointed out. Nevertheless, I consider the evolution of rebetiko to be a thoroughly Greek matter. This music was moulded and absorbed into the consciousness of Greeks in later years, so that Bagiantéras—and others, too—could by then speak of popular song!

3 Likes
13

What you’re saying is very interesting. But I think it creates a “problem”, in the sense that, all right, as a genre it is derived from certain Mediterranean musical traditions, but the whole question of zeibekiko, hasapiko and the bouzouki isn’t really like that everywhere. Beyond the obvious influences of our own and the Ottoman traditions, I believe Arvanite culture also played a significant part, as did Italy, given the bouzouki’s influence from the mandolin—just to take a broader, less Greek-centric view. But I think we may lose our bearings a little! Let’s give it a try!
Of course, Vlachs, islanders, Asia Minor Greeks, Pontic Greeks, Arvanites, Constantinopolitans, Jews, Athenians and Mycenaeans all contributed to rebetiko. From that perspective alone, it contains an infinite number of elements from many traditions! But, strictly speaking, I’d say that the rebetiko scene as we know it began to take shape around 1900. The bouzouki was already a widely used term. I think it was in Anthimos’s post, using the Parliament archives, that we saw the word baglamas appearing in the written press in 1905. The koutsavakides and their ilk were also terrorising the streets around 1890. From Archigenis’s book, we learn that many mangas from Turkey, when they committed a murder, would pass through Syros and then on to Piraeus, and somehow or other, you can see it taking shape… Markos, however, was the first rebetiko composer to propel the genre to new heights after around thirty years on the margins—and it would remain marginal for quite some time yet!

2 Likes
14

Personally, I would include all the major ports of the Mediterranean. The Hydriot shipowners, for example, built most of their fortunes by breaking the English blockade of French ports during the Napoleonic Wars (Marseille, among others). The crews would go ashore and spend time in the local establishments. Anything they heard, they would presumably bring back to the Greek lands. Or they would carry grain from the Black Sea and sell it throughout Western Europe.

As for my first post, let me explain that I am referring to urban popular song in general. I believe it has a centuries-old tradition. “Rebetiko” was and remains an incorrect term.

The particular piece we are examining certainly developed in Greece and nowhere else, but as far as its roots are concerned, I agree with Alexandros that we should look for them outside the Greek world as well.

2 Likes
15

Very interesting information. I would try to narrow it down somewhat, focusing more on the eastern Mediterranean, but then there’s “How Dry I Am”, or, in other words, the bar waiter :joy::joy:
What you realise when studying anything human is that the butterfly effect applies. Wars, migrations, trade and so on have certain consequences, but they are also ways of engaging in cultural dialogue. What we generally regard, as a population, as traditional songs—for example, music featuring clarinets—is completely different from what it was two hundred years ago, for instance. The mere introduction of the clarinet as an instrument changed the interpretations too! One could say that this is a German musical influence, from one perspective… but who hasn’t also been influenced by classical music? Don’t we hear it enough in our popular songs? Tsitsanis had pre-war compositions that were Western. But there I’m not sure whether we’re talking about rebetiko or about something that had by then become personal creative work… I’m getting them mixed up with a few scattered thoughts.

1 Like
16

I read the entire discussion that Christos used as a starting point in the original post. Eleni and Nikos Politis established some chronological boundaries in an attempt to initiate a more thorough discussion.

In my opinion, the best idea was to set aside the term “rebetiko” and start examining Urban Folk Song as a broader whole, defining as far as possible—which is difficult, since there is some overlap—the genres it encompasses. I believe the most significant point to emerge from that discussion was that using the term “rebetiko” as an umbrella term only creates confusion.

2 Likes
17

My own perspective after 16 years.

  1. Certainly, the term “urban-popular” is easier to understand; it does not cause confusion, raise as many objections or questions, or require as many explanations, etc., unlike the term “rebetiko”. Consequently, the corresponding periodisation also becomes easier.

  2. And now for a twist: the realisation that the term “rebetiko”, which was first used to label songs, was absolutely not an invention of certain record-company executives [as several researchers had argued] and that, wherever and by whomever it was first used, this was done consciously and not at all by chance. Now that we know that the term “rebetiko” derives from the word “rembeta”, a term that already existed in Smyrna’s slang before 1871 (when it was officially recorded), and by following the word’s development, a study of the sources shows that, over time, it went from being the argot of the underworld [: a term describing illegal / marginal groups (night-time thieves)] to referring either to a situation without formalities / proprieties and beyond rules, or to people who live a bohemian, carefree life, inclined towards entertainment and idle pursuits.

Prokopiou is therefore vindicated too, according to whom “rebetika songs smell of a neighbourhood in Smyrna”; as an example of this, he cites:

“…Didn’t I tell you once in Armenia
I didn’t tell you twice in the barber’s shop
I didn’t tell you three times not to get married…”

And the executives of the record companies, in turn, also label as “rebetika” songs such as “Aponia” and “Tick Tock”: festive, bohemian, light-hearted songs, songs of merriment and carefree enjoyment.

And perhaps there is also “confirmation” from Innes, who, speaking of “rebetika”, describes them as “…light-hearted songs of the popular / lower classes…”.

This observation is significant [beyond the lexicological points mentioned], because even under the term “rebetiko” we must include songs in this category (light-hearted / festive, etc.) — the “pre-rebetika”, shall I call them? I mean the unrecorded songs, such as those preserved in the Vienna manuscript or in Fauriel’s collection. After all, couplets from this great cultural legacy were successfully used by the creators of our modern urban-popular song.

  1. Therefore, even a cursory look at this entire cultural legacy of ours distances us from identifying even “rebetiko” (if not “urban-popular” music) with stabbings, drugs, blood and marginal behaviour in general. Songs with such content certainly do exist, but are they the rule? Do they constitute the majority, enough to justify such an identification?

  2. As for the origin of the idea, now, after so much ink has been spilled, I believe that it “does not originate in lectures and books written by people speaking without authority”, but in the biographies of those with genuine expertise, the very contributors to our popular song, in a wealth of written sources from the press, in the broader Greek and foreign bibliography, and so on.

4 Likes
18

I’m نقلing Eleni’s periodization here from the first thread started by Christos.

URBAN POPULAR SONG

A. Before the recording era

B. Urban popular song of the recording era.

1. 1900–1922: The anonymous period of the recording era.
It includes: mangas songs, mourmourika, koutsavakika, songs from the urban milieu of Smyrna (not only the Yovanikeio style) and Constantinople, amanés, folk songs, songs from Ioannina, and Ionian and Athenian serenades.

2. 1922–1933: The period of the dominance of Smyrneiko and Politiko.

3. 1933–1950 (*approximately, perhaps a little later; let’s keep the time limits somewhat flexible)
The prevalence of bouzouki and baglamas players, Vamvakaris, and the wider circle of the Piraeus group.

4. 1950–…today? [perhaps—when does it end, after all? Because good urban popular songs are still being written today—fortunately)

2 Likes
19

And here is Nikos Politis’s:

“Early” period (19th century – 1932*):

Its origins lie in the 19th century and it comprises the following subcategories:

  • Songs that have at various times been described using the terms mangiko, koutsavakiko, mortiko and mourmouriko, and are associated with the urban underworld. Most of them were created in the urban areas of the “Greek mainland”, chiefly Athens. (I have not included the term “giourout(k)iko” because, quite simply, there is no such category of songs. It is a rhythm.)

  • Songs created and sung mainly in Smyrna and Constantinople by Greek-speaking populations up to 1922. They include the Smyrnaic minore and amanedes (Eastern-style and Western-influenced), influences from “Ioannina-style” urban songs and, more generally, Greek-related recorded output from the early 20th century (up to 1920) in Smyrna and Constantinople, with the exception of pieces of purely Western origin (operettas, European waltzes, etc.).

  • Songs (mainly folk songs of traditional origin) sung by broader popular strata in the urban areas of the Ottoman Empire at the time, chiefly Smyrna and Constantinople. Recordings by emigrants in America are also included (Karapiperis, Jack Gregory).

(Athens) Smyrnaic / Constantinopolitan (1922 – 1942)

This includes recordings made during this period by the creators of the so-called “Smyrnaic School”. This school also includes composers / performers of Constantinopolitan origin and culture, but more generally the “Smyrnians” too always kept an eye on the City.

First (or Pre-war) Period of Bouzouki-Baglamas Players (1932 – 1942).

This includes the “Piraeans” (Markos and his circle, Yovan Tsaous, etc.) and the newer creators who joined up until the factory closed. It does not include the “early” figures (Jack Gregory), who belong in the “early” category.

Comments

*I use 1932 so as to include Jack Gregory as well.

There are, of course, chronological overlaps, which are unavoidable. The problem is whether or not to include Smyrnaic composers among the “early bouzouki-baglamas players” when their arrangements use only bouzouki and baglamas. This can be resolved only by retaining the designation “rebetiko”. It is, however, a secondary issue.

2 Likes
20

And here is his second post on Eleni’s periodisation:

“Right, let’s start with Eleni’s outline. I find it a little oversimplified, though perhaps that’s better this way. My comments:

A. Before the recording era: It can’t remain without explanations, but let’s overlook that for now. I provided some explanations myself in #96.

B.1. 1900–1922: The demotic songs should not be included; they are not urban. The same goes for folk-like songs such as “Old Dimos Died”, which, besides, are neither anonymous nor laïka.

B.3. 1933–1950:
First, it isn’t only the “Piraeus” group (including Yovan Tsaous and Genitsaris), but also dozens of other younger figures, including many major names, so its scope needs to be made much “broader” in order to include them. Second, the insertion of the Occupation period is decisive. Third, I don’t feel comfortable so readily omitting the term rebetiko altogether. And, of course, there is the major dilemma of where to draw the dividing line between rebetiko and laïko. Let’s leave the issue of censorship aside…

So I have the following suggestions: split this period into two parts: up to 1942 and from 1946 onwards. The first sub-period should be dated 1933–1942, including everyone but without mentioning any names. Just “bouzouko-baglamades”. The second: “1946–roughly the 1950s”. The period from 1933 to roughly the 1950s should be called the “Rebetiko” period; the quotation marks could also be removed.

B.4.: Let’s call it, for example, “1960 onwards: Later Laïka”.

There are, of course, many problems, such as Vamvakaris’s second career. Well, a few more explanations, clarifications and so on will be needed.”

2 Likes
21

I think the “mistake” in that thread was that it became far too sprawling and, in my opinion, unnecessarily so. While they already had the first “tools” at their disposal to move forward and make some headway, they got bogged down in secondary issues that ultimately tired people out and discouraged participation.

Not to mention the elitist walls of text with nothing of substance to say.

2 Likes