Τραγουδίστρια: Αμαλία Μπάκα

Stoixeia apo tin prosopiki kai kallitexniki zon tis gnostis tragoudistrias tis amerikis (apo entheto diskou):

Amalia! Old Greek Songs in the New Land 1923-1950

Three days after her 15th birthday, traveling by herself on the The Kaiser Franz Josef I, Mazaltov (Mally) Matsa of Janina, Turkey, steamed toward the new land. Two weeks shy of a year later she married Jack Saretta, a fellow from her hometown, and set up housekeeping on Rivington Street in New York’s Lower East Side, a short walk from the New York Janina Synagogue. She had work as a seamstress and he made silk flowers for lady’s hats.

The Janina she left in 1912 was diverse, fractious, complicated, multinational and multicultural, in many ways similar to New York. Romaniote Jews had lived in Janina for about 1,800 years. Life for Mally had been strictly defined by that tradition. In the Romaniote community, girls were born to a servile position in a male-dominated world, their births not recorded, their early education limited to that which would best serve their future husbands, and their worth reckoned in the end by the number of male children they might bear. A Rornaniote girl was kept at home until her father chose a husband for her. When she married, she was sent to live in the home of her new husband.

Mally’s marriage was certainly arranged before she left Janina. The home she made in the new land was intended to continue the old ways. The enumerator for the 1920 census found Mally and Jack with two daughters, Diamond and Esther Cleoniki, named after their grandmothers in the Romaniote tradition.

The old ways had a good foothold on New York’s Lower East Side, although for Mally the pressures and freedoms to be found on foreign shores had shaped changes even before she landed. She had traveled by herself on the Kaiser Franz Josef I, an immense modern ocean liner, only months from its own maiden voyage (actually the largest ship ever to fly the Austrian flag). At Ellis Island she was detained because she did not have the $50 in cash required of new immigrants; after a phone call she was sponsored by her Aunt Rachel. Life in New York demanded money, so Mally got a job sewing in a factory. Circumstance had forced her to accept a level of responsibility and independence forbidden Romaniote girls in Janina, and with it came opportunities that were also customarily denied.

In Janina, Mally lived within Jewish, Greek, and Turkish cultures, and threads of each are woven through her songs. About the only public or semi-public activity that Romaniote women could engage in was the keening of laments at the time of death. Romaniote religious ceremony is conducted in demotic, that is, everyday spoken Greek, instead of Hebrew, and Romaniote singing also borrowed traditional Greek melodies. The memory of these songs and laments was deeply instilled, and they would always be an important part of Mally’s repertoire.

Mally sang all her life. Her talent for singing was “discovered” when she sang in the factory where she sewed, or when she sang while hanging up her laundry. Both stories are probably true. She sang in Greek and Turkish, and by the early 1920s had begun singing professionally as Amalia in Greek cafe-amans and Turkish clubs. Her first recordings were eight Turkish songs for the M. G. Parsekian Record Company, across the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey; then in Chicago, she recorded six Greek and Turkish songs for the Greek Record Company of George Gretsis and Spiros Stamos.

Amalia’s independent spirit and emerging career caused trouble at home. In the old country, women who sang in clubs were considered prostitutes- fallen women at best. Jack divorced her, and Cleoniki was sent to live in Greece (“kidnapped”, Diamond says).

In 1926 Mally converted to the Greek Othodox Church in order to marry Gus Bakas, and continued recording as Amalia Baka from 1927 to 1929. Gus worked in the restaurant business, and Amalia was herself involved in clubs and restaurants, both as owner and as headline entertainment.

Live performances in Turkish clubs, cafe-amans and restaurants were the mainstay of Amalia’s singing career. She was always working, according to her daughter, Diamond, who from the beginning was with her at recording sessions and on stage, playing doumbek, encouraging her with "Ya sou, Mitera! " (“your health, mother!”) and sometimes singing duets with her. Cafe-amans were lively and numerous in Prohibition-era New York. Entertainment, atmosphere and booze were a magic combination, and dozens flourished around Eighth and Ninth Avenues at 33rd and 34th Streets, packed with people from all parts of the city. Amalia opened her own club, the Cafe-Aman Pavsilipon, with, as Diamond remembers, “- a few tables and a bottle of bootleg booze … little by little they were coming in … the priest came in, too.”

Amalia did not record in the 1930s, but traveled quite a bit, often with singer George Katsaros, and sang at clubs, restaurants, and resorts in an informal circuit that included New York, the Catskills and Finger Lakes areas of New York, and cities with large Greek populations such as Detroit, Chicago, Gary (Indiana) and Philadelphia.

By 1940 Amalia and Diamond were living in Chicago, and Amalia was involved with a club/restaurant, the Pantheon, near Halsted Street in the heart of “the Delta,” Chicago’s old Greektown. Chicago Greek restaurants were also bars and nightclubs, social watering holes with live entertainment, cadres of regulars and many stories. Amalia was a spirited and memorable participant who helped lead the charge for about two decades and is still remembered with fondness and awe. “If she didn’t like you, chairs would fly”, recalled John Katsikas, a cymbalon and samtouri player who accompanied Amalia. Her performance of “Bahaiotiko,” a slow dirge, is remembered still, as is her prowess at poker and barbuti dice. To a patron who needed money to get married she gave a gold ring from her own finger, “and she would swear like a man”.

In the early 1940s Amalia was recording again, this time for Ajdin AsIlan’s MeRe/ Balkan/ Gadinis/ Kalaphone/ Metropolitan family of labels in New York, in which she also had part ownership. Her recording sessions in New York were with luminaries such as clarinetists Gus Gadinis, John Pappas and John Dalas, kanounists Garbis Bakirgian and Theodore Kappas, and violinists Alexis Zervas and Nick Doneff.

During World War II Greek music in the United States saw a revival of songs and styles that had originated or were popular in the late 1910s and early 1920s, the time of the influx of ethnic Greek refugees from Turkey into Greece as part of the 1922 League of Nations relocations. Over a third of Amalia’s recordings from this period were old songs from her own or from pioneer Greek vocalist Coula Antonopoulos’s early recorded repertoire. Mostly laments or songs that expressed resilience in the face of troubles, they offered some solace to expatriates horrified at the fate of Greece and their families and friends there during World War II.

Amalia retired in the early 1960s. Chicago’s redevelopment efforts had removed the heart of Greektown to make way for the University of Illinois Chicago campus, and Amalia’s home
and the restaurants and clubs she sang in were destroyed. Diamond had moved to Florida in
1960 and opened the New Hellas restaurant in Tarpon Springs, close to where the sponge boats docked. Amalia followed in 1974, moving to New Port Richie, just north of the docks.
Amalia died in 1979. Her obituary did not mention that she was a singer, that one of the most fluid and evocative of Greek voices had been stilled.

Amalia lived and sang with great passion. Though her repertoire was very traditional she made her songs her own by comments and ad libs while singing, by changing words, and by using songs to show what was happening in her life. She wrote “Elenitsa Mou” when she was baptized, taking the baptismal name Eleni, and she wrote and sang “Diamontoula Mou” for her daughter Diamond. Unlike her contemporaries Marika Papagika and Coula Antonopoulos, she did not sing much of the world of hash, manges and rebetes- most of her recorded songs are about love.

In her long experience singing for live audiences in the small clubs she developed a very personal and intimate style. She understood and exploited the subtleties of the electric microphone from its first years in the recording medium to bring a palpable closeness and immediacy to her recordings.

Remarkable within ordinary circumstances, her story is almost incredible when her own background is considered. Uprooted and cast to sea on a floating skyscraper to make her way in a boisterous and challenging world, she responded with an indomitable, creative and generous spirit that is still left in her songs.

                                                                                                David Soffa, Berkeley, 2002 


                 * * * 

Diki mou simiosi:

Apo to fotografiko kai entypo yliko tou enthetou prokyptei episis oti n Amalia synergastike/syneurethike kata kairous me tous akolouthous kallitexnes:

  • Rena Dalia- Chicago, dekaetia 1950, apo fotografia.

  • Giorgo Kasara Makedona, Gabrili Kanontzi (kanun), Panagioti Pilioti (santouri), kai ton
    gero Augerino (laouto)- ca 1930, apo diafimistiko fyladio tou Cafe-aman Pavsilipon.

  • Nishan Sedefjian (bioli), Natan (outi), Romano (santouri), Teli Karapanioti (kithara)- New York, dekaetia 1940, apo fotografia.

                    * * * 
    

Hikmet Feridun Es lived in Istanbul and was a frequent traveler to the United States. His column, Amerikada Turkler (Turks in America) appeared in the Istanbul newspaper Hurriyet in the years after World War II. He caught Amalia- show in Detroit and wrote this review for his column around 1950, titled Amelya Hanim ve kizi.

Amalia Hanim and her Daughter
-The Most Famous Singers of Americas Entertainment World

By Hikmet Feridun Es

That night there was an important reason for the big crowd to gather in this tavern: Istanbuli Amalia and her daughter Diamond were visiting Detroit. For years, the mother and daughter have been America’s most well known singers singing in Turkish. Amalia Hanim, in particular, has been living in the U.S. for a long time as a Mistengette in alaturka. The Amalia-Diamond duo also dances the ciftetelli very lively. In America, there is no one better than them in alaturka dancing.

The mother and daughter appeared on the stage to great applause. Both were dressed in crimson red. Their shoes and handkerchiefs were of a matching color. They wore red Mexican combs. Amalia Hanim, who has made her fame for so many years through her records and singing on stage, nevertheless looked only a little bit different than her daughter in terms of her age. One who did not know them would have a hard time believing they were mother and daughter. They started singing and dancing. Perhaps they may have picked it on purpose, the first song they sang was Anasini istermem, kizini da ver bana! (I do not want her mom, give me her daughter too). As Amalia Hanim sang the chorus, one could hear men shouting at the stage in Greek accent “Who said that? Who said that?”

Amelya Hanim is indeed more lively and flirtatious than her daughter as she dances, undulating her body, her eyes half closed. Since her legs too are very beautiful like a Mistengette, she does not miss any opportunity to do figures that cause her skirt to lift way up in the air. Since our songs had never been popular in America, she adapted them, sometimes unrecognizably, to their taste. Though her first records were released 25 years ago, she is still very fresh after 25-30 years.

Arnalia Hanim’s family was originally from Janina. She was born in Istanbul. She sang in Kadikoy and at the Yoriganci Gardens in Harbiye, then she went to Syria. She worked as a singer there. Syria, Egypt, and then one day she found herself in New York. She opened several casinos and a big gambling casino, she made a lot of money. Then she spent all her money. For the money she made, she says, gesturing with her right hand, “It came from here”, and then continues gesturing with her left hand “and went there.” She finishes what she was saying in English which she started in Turkish and then continues in Greek “I don’t care.”

That is, she means I do not care. And finally the mother and the daughter leaping onto the stage start singing flirtatious songs head to head and bouncing and rocking on their feet. In the past there used to be postcards for lovers. I remember those while I watch them.

The most famous personages of the entertainment world are here. In America there is a very popular custom that everyone follows in this kind of alaturka music tavern. Every customer, man or woman, enraptured by the ciftetelli and saz, leaps up and starts dancing. And boy do they dance! There is nothing unusual about this. But what is unusual is one who stands up and takes his wallet out as his first dance figure. He throws a few dollars on the floor. And only then he starts dancing. He loses himself dancing.

The music ends. But instead of sitting down he takes his wallet out again. This time with even greater passion he throws a handful of money on the floor. The music starts again, the dancing again … Sometimes there are so many people who get up to dance ciftetelli that they, women and men, dance all together by forming a chain with handkerchiefs folded between their fingers. The singers who sing while dancing with them wipe off the beads of sweat that run down the men’s foreheads with colorful and scented little handkerchiefs.

But when the saz stops they stop holding hands for a moment, and some take their wallets out, some their purses, and throw dollar bills on the floor or to the front of the stage, and again the music and again the dance … In other words, those enraptured pay as if they are buying tickets for each and every dance they are going to bounce and dance with.

Like gamblers those who dance once can not hold themselves back ever again. it is not an uncommon scene to see someone who dances a second dance, a third dance and then a fifth and soon empties his pockets and wallets, and even throws his ring to the saz. And there is no one who does not get excited and get up to dance. For them they left a small opening in the middle. Sometimes it is so crowded there that people dancing bump into each other.

One fat man passed me by, appeared in the crowd, threw bills that were in the shape of balls all crumpled in his hand. Amalya Hanim and her daughter picked these up. They unfolded them and put them into a basket.

At this, I said with a smile to a local next to me “Here one should be a singer or musician.” He answered "Once Iraqis and Syrians came here, 24 of them. They were wearing white tuxedos. Wearing curious fezzes on their heads. They would come to the stage rather showily, men and women too. The Syrians here made a good name for themselves. They spent a lot of money!

I asked whether the fat guy who had since been paying and dancing was rich. They said “he is a worker at the Ford factory. He can speak Turkish well. He is from somewhere around Syria.” Then they added, “He got his weekly pay today.” Outside, the sun was rising. The poor guy was worn down by hopping and belly dancing. He was saying “I will drink a cup of tea and then go directly to work.”

That is, he was going to go to the factory after his tremendous tiredness. And he would tell his friends “I had so much fun last night!”

(Istanbul, 1950)

Γεια σου Γιαννη,

Θαυμασιο αρθρο! Μου επιτρεπεις να το κανω cut and paste και να το στειλω σε ενα αλλο φορουμ; Βεβαια θα αναφερω το ονομα σου για τον κοπο που εκανες να το δακτυλογραψεις. Το αρθρο δινει μια πολυ παραστατικη εικονα της νυχτερινης ζωης και της κουλτουρας των Ελληνων και αλλων μεταναστων της Αμερικης. Το εθιμο να ριχνουν τα χαρτονομισματα στην πιστα μου θυμιζει μια σκηνη σε ενα μυθιστορημα που εχω μελετησει ιδιαιτερα, το " Στου Χατζηφραγκου" του Κοσμα Πολιτη (που διαδραματιζεται στη Σμυρνη στην αρχη του εικοστου αιωνα). Εκει υπαρχει μια σκηνη που περιγραφει πως ενας μαγκας μπαινει μεσα σε ενα καφε αμαν, ριχνει μια λιρα κατω και αρχιζει να χορευει. Δεν ξερω αν σημερα υπαρχει ακομα η “χαρτουρα” και η “παραγγελια” στα πανηγυρια, αλλα ειναι βεβαια κατι παρομοιο. Και θα μπορουσε κανεις να πει οτι τα λουλουδια και οι σαμπανιες στα σημερινα μπουζουκια/σκυλαδικα ειναι μια καπως διεφθαρμενη παραλλαγη αυτου του εθιμου!;-).

Ευα

Kanena problima.

Episis exo eksakrivosei ti itan oi Romaniotes ebraioi (mou itan agnosto). Diabasa kapou oti oi romaniotes itan oi arxikoi ebraioi ton balkanion I skoufia tous krataei diladi apo tous protous metaxristianikous xronous kai tis ebraikes metanasteuseis pou elaban xora tote. Autos o oros xrisimopoieite se antidiastoli me tous sephardites ebraious pou einai metagenesteroi, kai irthan apo tin Iberiki xersoniso ton 15 aiona. Oi romaniotes apo oti phenetai itan se meiopsyfia. Oi sephardites itan poly perissoteroi.

Γεια σου παλι,

Υπαρχει ενα βιβλιο που αναφερεται συγκεκριμενα στους Ρωμανιωτες (αν γραφεται ετσι!) Εβραιους των Ιωαννινων. Ο τιτλος ειναι The Jews of Ioannina και η συγγραφεας ειναι η Rae Dalven που ειναι η ιδια γεννημενη εκει (τωρα ζει στην Αμερικη, νομιζω). Μπορεις να το βρεις στο Amazon.

Επισης, αν ψαξεις στο Google θα βρεις πολλα ενδιαφεροντα αρθρα, sites κ.λ.π.

Οσο για τη λογοτεχνια, ο Δημητρης Χατζης εχει γραψει ενα πολυ ωραιο διηγημα για τη εβραικη κοινοτητα των Ιωαννινων, “Ο Σαμπεται Καμπιλης”, που περιλαμβανεται στο βιβλιο “Το τελος της μικρης μας πολης”. Και τελικα, δυο απο τα κεντρικα προσωπα στο “Στου Χατζηφραγκου” ειναι ο συμπαθητικος μουσικος (παιζει το ουτι) ο σιορ Ζαχαριας και η γυναικα του η σιορα Φιορα, που ειναι Ρωμανιωτες Εβραιοι απο την Κερκυρα, που καποτε εγκατασταθηκαν στη Σμυρνη.

Ξερω, βεβαια, οτι το παρον θεμα δεν ειναι καθαρα μουσικο, αλλα απο την αλλη ειναι παντα ενδιαφερον να μαθεις το ιστορικο, κοινωνικο κ.λ.π πλαισιο στο οποιο κινουνταν οι καλλιτεχνες για τους οποιους συζηταμε.

Ευα

Για το βιβλιο της Dalven, δες το παρα κατω URL:

http://www.allbookstores.com/book/0930685032

Ευα

Ρομανιωτες.

Οι πρωτοι Εβραιοι που εφθασαν στην Ελλαδα τον πρωτο π.Χ. αιωνα, ηταν δουλοι που εφεραν οι Ρωμαιοι απο την Ιουδαια στα πλαισια της προσπαθειας την εξωρυξης της διωρυγας της Κορινθου, Η πρωτη κοινοτητα που δημιουργηθηκε ηταν στην περιοχη της Χαλκιδας (εχει βρεθει στον Ωρωπο εβραικη ταφοπλακα απο τον πρωτο αιωνα π.Χ.). Οι επισκεψεις και επιστολες του Αποστολου Παυλου (προς Κορινθιους, Εφεσσιους, Φιλιππιους, Αθηναιους και αλλες) ουσιαστικα απευθυνονται προς τις αυτες τις Εβραικες κοινοτητες. Οι περισσοτεροι ομως απο αυτους τους σκλαβους που καταφεραν να δραπετευσουν, συγκεντρωθηκαν σε δυσβατες συνηθως περιοχες και ιδιαιτερα στην Ηπειρο, περιοχες που οι Ρωμαικες δυναμεις δεν μπορουσαν και δεν ηθελαν να μπλεχτουν και ανεπτυξαν ενεργες Εβραικες κοινοτητες, τηρωντας ολα τα Εβραικα ηθη και εθιμα και τις εντολες της Εβραικης θρησκειας και παραλληλα ενσωματωθηκαν στην Ελληνικη ζωη και κουλτουρα,χρησιμοποιωντας την Ελληνικη γλωσσα ακομα και σε κομματια προσευχων. Ενα απο τα παραδοξα ειναι το γεγονος οτι εγραφαν Ελληνικα με εβραικους χαρακτηρες. Ενα αλλο εθιμο που εμφανιζεται στους Ρωμανιωτες και ειδικοτερα στους Γιαννιωτες ειναι τα ασημενια ταματα που στολιζαν τα καλυματα των ιερων βιβλιων της Πεντατευχου, εθιμο που δεν υπαρχει σε καμμια αλλη Εβραικη κοινοτητα στον κοσμο και κατα τα φαινομενα ειναι επιρροη των ταματων προς Αγιους του Ελληνορθοδοξου Χριστιανικου δογματος. Και εν τελει το φημισμενο κιτρινο Ελληνικο τυρι, το κασερι, ειναι ουσιαστικα το τυρι που εφτιαχναν οι Εβραιοι της Ηπειρου βασει των νομων διατολογιας που διεπουν την Εβραικη θρησκεια (Απαγορευση αναμειξης γαλακτοκομικων προιοντων και ζωικων προιοντων). Ως γνωστον η πηξη της φετας γινεται με πιτια που προερχεται απο τα στομαχικα υγρα των προβατων. Οι Εβραιοι της Ηπειρου βρηκαν αλλο τροπο πηξης που δεν χρησιμοποιουσε ζωικη πιτια και επειδη το συνολο των νομων της Εβραικης διαιτολογιας ονομαζεται στα εβραικα Κασερ, το ονομα στην διαρκεια του χρονου εκφυλιστηκε και εγινε κασερι.

Αυτα για την ωρα

Φιλικα

Αγγελος Ραφαηλ

I look up at the starry sky
Which is so free and serene.
The broad bosom
Provides the place where where my soul rests and nestles to.