At the beginning of the 20th century, Europe is living in peace and prosperity. The “Belle Époque” is an outgrowth of previous important historical events and developments. The networks that are created and which evolve funnel both people and their products, tangible and intangible. It is within this multi-layered world that sound recording and sound reproduction is invented. Early record labels send mobile crews literally all over the world to record local musicians. The range of the repertoire is endless. Cosmopolitanism in large urban centers favors polystylisms and polymorphisms. Colonialism, revolutions, conflicts, refugee flows; the theater, cinema, radio, photography, orchestras’ tours, but also circulations in all kinds of commercial channels in a world that evolves dynamically and anisotropically, form a complex network of “centers” and “peripheries” in alternating roles setting musical idioms in motion, both literally and figuratively. The networks in which the Greek-speaking musics participate, constantly conversing with their co-tenants, are magnificent. Discography has already provided important tools in understanding the relationships that developed between “national” repertoires. The result of this ongoing research is “Cosmopolitanism in Greek Historical Discography”.

Naturally, in the large urban centers of the Ottoman Empire around the Mediterranean Sea, the “conversations” of the Greek-speakers with their Turkish-speaking Muslim “co-tenants”, the Catholic Greek-speakers, the Armenians, the Sepharadi and Ashkenazi Jews, the Levantine Protestants, and the Europeans and the Americans, were more than intense. Very often, the scope of this network extends to the Balkans, to Eastern and even to a part of Central Europe. Especially regarding relations between Orthodox and Muslims, the relevant evidence demonstrates the musical exchanges between them and elucidate an ecumene where everyone contributed to the great musical “melting-pot”, and where everyone may draw from it, as well as redeposit it, in a new form, with a reformulated text and its meaning, with sometimes clear and sometimes blurred references to its pre-text, until someone else pulls it out again, through the “melting-pot”, so that it becomes clear that there is no end in this recreational and dynamic process where fluidity prevails. A case that comes from this type of repertoire is the song “To gelekaki”.

According to the data collected so far, the song was recorded nine times in Greek historical discography, a number that undoubtedly reflects its popularity:

– “To gelekaki”, Nitsa Moretti – Petros Kyriakos, Athens, 1932 (Columbia W.G. 383 – D.G. 236 and re-released by Columbia Turkey W.G. 383 – DT 42, this recording).
– “To gelekaki”, Dimitris Filippopoulos – Dimitris Efstratiou, Athens, 1932 (Columbia W.G. 384 – D.G. 237).
– “To gelekaki”, Marika Nezer – Kostas Kontopoulos, Athens, 1932 (Parlophon 101256 – B.21643-I).
– “To gelekaki”, Marika Nezer – M. Zafeiridis, Athens, 1933 (Odeon Go 1801 – GA 1618 και GA 1638).
– “To gelekaki”, Artemis Manesi – Alkis Pagonis, Athens, 1933 (Odeon Go 1836 – GA 1617).
– “To gelekaki”, Tetos Dimitriadis – Christos Dimitrakopoulos, New York, February 22, 1933 (Orthophonic CS 75235-3 – S-627-A).
– “To gelekaki”, Kostas Doussas, Chicago, November 1934 (Columbia W 206627 – 56346-F).
– “To gelekaki”, Angeliki Karagianni – Giannis Degaitas, USA, 1947 (Liberty L 30A).
– “Gelekaki”, George Burlotos and The Georgettes, New York, September 29, 1953 (RCA Victor E3FB-1816 – 26-8331).

Of particular interest is the observation made by Panagiotis Kounadis regarding the appearance of musical phrases from the song in earlier Greek-language recordings. Commenting on the song “To chasisi”, he notes (2010, 3:42):"Musical phrases from 'To chasisi' appear in 'Otan se vlepo ki erchesai', as well as in the song 'To gelekaki', composed by Spyros Ollandezos."

The first song, “To chasisi”, is recorded in various versions in the discography and under several alternate titles, such as “De mou lete to chasisi pou pouliete”, “Mparmpagiannis” and “I ntamira”. The earliest known recording most likely took place in America around 1920 (for more on the song, see here).

The song “Otan se vlepo ki erchesai” was recorded by Takis Nikolaou—one of the pseudonyms used by Tetos Demetriades—in New York on April 25, 1927 (Victor CVE 38493 – 68812-B).

Alberto Nar presents two Sephardic variations, based on the song "Gelekaki", also quoting the lyrics in Ladino, that is, the Spanish-Jewish dialect of the Sephardic Jews (Narr, 1997b). He expresses the view that the variations "do not present elements in common with the verses of the Greek original". Furthermore, he mentions two recordings of the first variation, by “Italian Jew Liliana Treves Alcalay and the group 'Los pasharos sephardis' (The sephardic birds) from Constantinople”.

In vain, you shed tears and swear that you want me
Υou say you love me so much and that you'd die for me

Stop, my pretty one, deceiving me any longer
and setting me ablaze with your smile

You know that I love you and that I'd die for you
that you are my life and my dream

For the second variation, he mentions two cases where it appears: his own finding/transcription (Nar, 1985), as well as the "a capella performance by Mr Moses Eskenazis from Thessaloniki".

They admire you with your curly hair and enviable part
But your money’s mine. You didn't have a penny.

Go on, leave, I don’t want you. You drained me of both blood and marrow.
Be on your way, the time has passed when I used to say: “I'd die for you.”

Rivka Havassy, ​​in her forthcoming article (Emery, forthcoming, see here), cites the recording entitled “Mostrame gracioza”, made between June-July 1948 by Jack Mayesh in New York (Me-Re Balkan 6003 B). Based on the data so far, this is the first appearance of the song in Ladino discography, with the lyrics of Nar's first version. The song “Onde que tope una que es plaziente”, which is a similar adoption of “Pou na vro gynaika na sou moiazei”, is on the other side of the same record. Jack Mayesh was born in 1899, in Kuşadası, Ottoman Empire. In 1920, he married Flora Salmoni, a resident of the island of Rhodes, born in 1903 in the city of Pordenore, in north-eastern Italy. More information about both Mayesh as well as the Sephardic repertoire in historical discography in general is provided on Joel Bresler's extremely informative webpage www.sephardicmusic.org.

Regarding the second Ladino version cited by Nar, Havassy states that the initial phrase of the lyrics comes from a longer text entitled “El falsador”. It comes from the book Los kantes populares de Sadik I Gazoz, published in 1933. The text in question states that this particular verse is "sung to the melody of the pleasant Greek tango 'To gelekaki pou foreis'". Havassy argues that there is a certain connection between the lyrical themes, as both the Ladino and Greek versions feature a girl who addresses a young man for whom she has prepared an outfit [a vest ("gelekaki") in Greek, pants in Ladino).

Furthermore, a similal observation to that of Kounadis (see above) made many years later by Rivka Havassy, prompted by the Ladino versions of the song “To Gelekaki”: she mentions that part of the tune from the song "To gelekaki” was also used in another Ladino song, specifically in “La bivdika i el hashishli”, which can be translated as “the widow and the hashish smoker". The verses were published on January 27, 1933, in the weekly satirical newspaper of the Israeli community of Thessaloniki La Gata, and published in Hebrew. Havassy, ​​through this connection, correctly also links “To gelekaki” to the song [i chira kai] “I ntamira”, one of the variations of the song “To chasisi”, stating that it uses the melody from the chorus (see above).

A particularly illustrative example of the relationship between the two aforementioned songs can be found in three recordings that include numbers from unidentified theatrical revues. These recordings open with the musical phrase under discussion and incorporate lyrics from both songs. The first is “I diathiki tou magka” (Pathé 70569 – 80236, Athens, 1932), features music by Giorgos Kamvysis and includes lyrics from “To chasisi” sung over the familiar melody (Come on, man, when you die what will you do with the narghile?). The second is “I diathiki tou chasikli” (Odeon Go 1782 – GA 1599/ A 190414 b, Athens, 1932), preent the same number, this time featuring Giorgos Kamvysis also as a vocalist. The third is “To parapono tou magka” (Odeon Go 1908-2 – GA 1658 / A190473 b, Athens, 1933), opens with the same melody, using the opening words of the chorus from the song “To gelekaki” (Come on, man, I scold it, I scold it).

Syncretism, which is observed in the musical actualizations of the areas where Greeks lived and recorded, mainly in the area of folk-popular traditions, is monumental. It only takes one to listen to historical discography, which begins in New York, Smyrna (Izmir), Constantinople (Istanbul), Athens and Thessaloniki since 1900. An essential part of this syncretism concerns the Jews, who constitute one of the main conduits in the uniquely diverse cultural heritage of the Greek-speaking world. They borrow and lend, but they also carry more distant traditions from the places where they have previously lived and the places they have traveled to. They are the central interlocutors in the Greek and Ottoman ecumene, and compose a rich musical mosaic which consists of heterogeneous but co-existent palimpsests: a great musical melting-pot.

The sources show the timeless existence of a Jewish element, at least since the Hellenistic period, in areas that millennia later formed the modern Greek state. After the “Edict of Milan” in 313 AD and the gradual Christianization of the Eastern Empire, the Jewish element found itself in a difficult position. The Jewish populations that have since been established in these lands became known as Romaniote Jews (or “Romaniotes”’ Rome – Romios). Their historical geographical center of reference was the city of Ioannina, and they speak Greek with various linguistic mixtures. After 1492 and the “Alhambra Decree” by the joint Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, those Jews who did not accept to embrace Christianity were expelled from the Iberian peninsula. They became known as the Sepharadi Jews (or “Sepharadim”), one of the largest Jewish ethno-cultural categorizations (Sepharad in Jewish texts is referred to as the region of present-day Spain). Thessaloniki was one of the main destination points of this displacement, as the ties with the city were older and already close. Apart from the role played by the Greek Jews in the musical developments on the Greek peninsula, there were also important mutual influences between the Greek-speaking Orthodox and the Jews in various other areas where the two communities lived together. As, for example, in Odessa, with the Eastern Ashkenazi Jews, who mainly speak Yiddish, a sui generis Semitic-Slavic language (in Jewish texts, the Kingdom of Ashkenaz, a descendant of Noah, is connected with north-eastern European territories). Their orchestral repertoire is often called klezmer. In other words, apart from the geographical limits of the modern Greek state, the cultural conversations between the Greek Orthodox and the Jews also concern other parts of the world, both in Europe and America, where they met as immigrants.

Research and text: Leonardos Kounadis and Nikos Ordoulidis