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 this recording.

The tune was recorded as an instrumental piece three times in Greek historical discography:

- "To chanoumiko", Spyros Stamos (cimbalom) - Giorgos Gretsis (violin), Chicago, 1924-1925 (Greek Record Company 748 - 513B)
- "Chanoumiko", Antonis Sakellariou (clarinet), New York, April 1927 (Columbia W-205573 - 56063-F)
- "Kasampaliotiko zeimpekiko", probably Kostas Skarvelis (guitar) και Antonis Amiralis or Papatzis (harmonica), Athens, May 8, 1932 (Orthophonic 2Κ 1178-1 - S-656-A)

The song "Elliniki apolafsis", which recorded by Giorgos Katsaros (Theologitis) in Camden, New Jersey, on June 16, 1927 (Victor CVE 38934 - 68829-A), is also based on this tune.

Panagiotis Kounadis mentions the following about the recording (2010, 1: 27):

"It is a song that comes from the Aegean islands and the Asia Minor coast, and one of the oldest – commonly accepted – rebetiko songs of the period of anonymous creation. If we take into account G. Katsaros’ testimony, that when he was young in Amorgos he remembers his grandfather singing it, that is, before 1900, it becomes clear how old the song is.

The question about the recording date concerns the fact that while the singer accurately remembered incidents that set that date on 15/12/1919, R. K. Spottswood, who compiled the general list of American discography in collaboration with the University of Illinois, found the date 16/6/1927 as the date of recording in the lists of record labels; he based and compiled his timetables based on those lists. Another fact that strengthens Katsaros' point of view is the quality of the recording. The recording seems to have been made before 1925, so it was made not with a microphone but with a horn".

One more song, specifically "San pethano sto karavi", recorded by Sotiria Mpellou in Athens on June 25, 1960 (His Master's Voice OGA 3138 - AO 5662) interacts with the tune in question. Αccording to the label of the recording, Bampis Mpakalis appears to be the author of the song.

In Greek historical discography, the tune can also be found (from about 2′ 03″) in the comic dialogue "O Stavrakas mes ston teke" (Odeon Go 2274 – GA 1853), with the accompaniment of a bouzouki, a guitar and a... hookah. In the recording, which took place in 1935, in Athens, under the authorship of Spyros Peristeris (music) and Tsamas (text), one of the pseudonyms of Minos Matsas, Stavros Tzouras and an unknown man participate in the conversation.

It is worth noting that the song "Osoi echoun polla lefta" (Odeon Go 2507 - GA 1959/A190774a), recorded in 1936, in Athens, by Markos Vamvakaris, seems to draw from this particular tune.

The tune, however, interacts with the Turkish repertoire too. In the 1920s, the instrumental song "Zeibek Havassi" was recorded by unknown musicians, probably in Constantinople (Istanbul), for Pathé (Pathé 76.227 - 11.597). In the same decade, specifically in September or October 1927, the instrumental song "Aydin Zeybek Havasi" was recorded in Constantinople by a Turkish ensemble (Columbia 22080 – RT 17664 , Columbia GT 12312 and re-released in the USA by Columbia USA 40006-F). On the Turkish label of the record the band is listed as Halk Musiki Heyeti. In 1927, in Constantinople, Hayretin Efendi (oud), Hassan Efendi (qanun) and İhsan Bey (violin) recorded “İzmir Zeybek havasi” (Odeon Cx 3324 - X 131013 b).

It should be noted that in the Turkish record catalogs other recordings have been found which may be related to the song in question. However, no audio material of them has so far been found:

- "Aydın Zeybeği / Ud, Keman, Kanun ve Klarinetle" (Orfeon 11710)
- "Aydın Zeybek Havası / Zurna ile", Küçük Ali Bey (Odeon)
- "Aydın Zeybek Havası / İnce Saz ile", Şevki Bey Kumpanyası (Odeon)

Research and text: Leonardos Kounadis and Nikos Ordoulidis