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 network in which the Greek-speaking urban popular song participates, constantly conversing with its co-tenants, is 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 such repertoires is the recording “Tzantarmas”.

In Greek historical discography, in addition to the present recording, two more covers of the tune were released. The first one, prior to this cover, was made in New York in 1920, by an orchestra with unknown performers consisting of, according to the label on the record, a violin, a santur, a clarinet and cornets ("Tzantarmas", Panhellenion P. 151 – 5041- A).

The second recording was made some 30 years later, in 1951, in Athens, by the clarinetist Giorgos Anestopoulos ("Tzantarmas", Odeon Go 4508-1 – G.A. 7633). According to the label on the record, the tune is attributed to Giorgos Magnisalis (or Manisalis), son of the violinist Nikolaos Ladopoulos from Asia Minor, and to Evangelia Moraiti, Spyros Peristeris’ wife, in whose name some of his songs are attributed to.

In the Turkish repertoire, the tune is also found twice in a song form:

– “Jandarma”, Hanende İbrahim Efendi ve Rıza Bey, Constantinople (Istanbul), probably in 1911 (Orfeon 10055)
– “Jandarma”, İzmirli Santuri Recep, Kemani Cemal ve Mustafa Beyler, Istanbul, 1931 (Sahibinin Sesi AX 1607)

The title of the song comes from the Turkish word "Jandarma", from the French word gendarme (from the medieval French expression gens d'armes, meaning armed men) and means the gendarme in the Ottoman Empire.

The label on the record reads "Thieftinsis T. Demetriades", that is, "Conducted by Tetos Dimitriadis", who participates in the recording by uttering exclamations.

America, where this recording took place, was a microcosm of the globe: a "successful Babel". Naturally, a unique syncretism also dominated in the field of music. The birth, on the other hand, of discography, built a condition that favored debates and osmosis between the innumerable ethno-cultural groups that made up the population. These processes led to the re-imagining, the update and the renewal of old musical trends arriving in the United States and, at the same time, to their re-exportation to the "old worlds", thus setting up a uniquely multi-layered network. "National" repertoires live a new, parallel life, largely molded by discography, which attended to and "tuned" the overlapping relationships that had already developed in the "Old World". Repertoires communicated with each other once again; a familiar and already dynamic condition in Europe. The circulation of music was already a reality before the 20th century with theatrical and musical performances tours, but also with the networks of music publishing houses. Discography is not only embedded in this context, but also plays a key role in its transformation.

Research and text: Leonardos Kounadis and Nikos Ordoulidis