Rebetiko

The Rebetiko (Ρεμπέτικο) or Rebetiko tragoúdi (Ρεμπέτικο τραγούδι) is a form of Greek popular music appeared in the years 1920.

At the beginning movement of the hollows, it finishes with the wire of the decades by touching all the layers of the company. The songs known as rébétika are one of the most original creations and most specific of the modern Greek culture. Like the Blues in its time, they say the cry of marginal, the complaint of esseulés and of left for account.

This music developed especially in the urban centres of Greece, with Athens, the Pirée, Thessalonique and Syros.

“For me, it is initially that, the rebetiko: an atmosphere as much as a song, faces quiet and marked as much as dances or cries, odors frays of retsina, ouzo, fresh sawdust under the tables, cooled cigarette ends” (the Greek summer, Jacques Lacarrière, 1976)

In French, one says the Rebetiko in the singular, the Rebetika in the plural. The player, singer, type-setter of Rebetiko are a Rebetis (ο Ρεμπέτης), in the plural Rebetes (οι Ρεμπέτες), with the female singular the Rebetissa (η ρεμπέτισσα), with female plural the rebetisses (οι ρεμπέτισσες). The Danse which is associated for him is the Zeibekiko .

History

See also: Chronology of Rebetiko

Ilias Petropoulos, one of the largest specialists in this style located three periods in the history of Rebetiko:

1922 - 1932: period when the elements of the music of Smyrna
1932 - 1942 dominates: traditional period
1942 - 1952: period of broad diffusion.

Prehistory

The roots of the Rebetika are in the music of the coasts of Asia Mineure and Constantinople, and also in the songs of the prisons of the 19th century.

At the end of the 19th century existed in Greece and Asia Mineure what is called the “Kafe Aman” ( Καφέ αμάν ). Those were kafenía in which the customers diverted themselves with the music. These places were one of terraux development of Rebetika, with the prisons, the taverns and the tekedes.

The period when the elements of the music of Smyrna dominate

1922 is the year of the catastrophe of Asia Mineure; it is accompanied by the “exchange of the populations” envisaged by the Traité of Lausanne. Many Micrasiates settles in the big cities of Greece bringing with them their musical traditions.

The Rebetiko is born from the mixture of the music of Asia Mineure and elements of clean Greece.

During this period, the set of themes of the Rebetiko comprises mainly love songs and songs related to behaviors defying the law (for example consumption of Drogue S). At the beginning the smyrniote influence is such as it is difficult to distinguish the Rebetiko tragoudi from the Smyrneïko tragoudi . Little by little the Rebetiko acquires a clean character.

Representative musicians: Róza Eskenázy, Ríta Abatzí, Stelios Perpiniadis, Panayótis Toúndas…

The traditional period

In 1932 circulate in Greece the first recordings of Rebetika of Markos Vamvakaris (Μάρκος Βαμβακάρης). In 1936 the dictator Ioánnis Metaxás (Ιωάννης Μεταξάς) seizes the power and sets up the censure. By need, the discography adapts to the new rules and all the references to drugs, tekedes etc disappear little by little from the recordings.

Despite everything one continues to write songs with sulfurous set of themes until the invasion of Greece by the Germans in 1941; with the occupation all the recordings cease.

The time of the diffusion of mass

The principal personality of the Rebetiko at that time is Vassilis Tsitsanis (Βασίλης Τσιτσάνης). After the release of Greece, the Rebetiko starts to be popularized and thus leaves the hollows of the company where it was limited hitherto.

In parallel the set of themes of the songs evolves/moves: they are from now on the social love songs and topics which are with the last style. New rebetes makes their appearance, like Sotiria Bellou (Σωτηρία Μπέλλου). The majority of the specialists consider that it is in the Années 1950 that the Rebetiko pure dies and made place with the laïko tragoudi (λαϊκο τραγούδι).

The Bouzouki, principal instrument of the Rebetika , was largely adopted by the large Greek type-setters who are Mikis Theodorakis (Μίκης Θεοδωράκης) and Manos Hadjidakis (Μάνος Χατζιδάκις). Today the Rebetiko gained a great popularity and became a subject of research throughout the world.

The Rebetiko in the USA

The years following the catastrophe of Minor Asia , but also before this one, a great number of Greeks emigrated with the the United States, bringing with them the Rebetiko and the musical traditions of Smyrna. Already, at the beginning of the 20th century, of the smyrneïka tragoudia and of the traditional songs are recorded by the large American recording companies.

In 1919 the first Greek recording companies are founded and there is in the USA, as of the Années 1920, of the recordings which one can already describe as Rebetika - before even the first Greek recordings. One produces discs of Rebetika in the USA until the Second world war. The fame of certain Rebetika “American” crossed the ages: Misirlou , the band its of the film Pulp Fiction , is in fact only the resumption of a Rebetiko old man…

Musical instruments

The principal instruments of the Rebetiko are the Bouzouki, the Baglama and other instruments comparable (for example the Tzourás). One also uses in the Rebetika the challenge, the Accordéon, the Guitare, the Toumbelek, the zilia (similar to the Castagnette S) and other instruments. On some of the old recordings one hears the sound of glass: it is about its product by the contact of the Komboloï (κομπολόι) and of glass; some magges (μάγκες) had as a practice to accompany the musicians by this way.

Topics

The set of themes of the Rebetika tragoudia is with the first access the same one as that of any other musical style: love, its joys, its sorrows. But to these universal topics come to be grafted a series of subjects which exist only on a purely anecdotic basis in the contemporary recordings of the rest of the world: consumption of Hachich and Cocaine, prison, prostitution, uprooting. The existence, moreover, of topics anti-police officer and anti-middle-classes led many exégètes to name Rebetiko “the Greek Blues”.

Type-setters, lyric writers, musicians, singers

the catalog which follows is not to in no case exhaustive: it comprises only the great names of the style

Ríta Abatzí (Ρίτα Αμπατζή)
Giorgos Batis (Γιώργος Μπάτης)
Sotiría Béllou (Σωτηρία Μπέλλου)
Apostolos Chatzichristos (Απόστολος Χατζηχρήστος)
Manolis Chiotis (Μανώλης Χιώτης)
Anna Chrysafi (Άννα Χρυσάφη)
Loukas Daralas (Λουκάς Νταράλας)
Róza Eskenázy (Ρόζα Εσκενάζυ)
Michalis Genitsaris (Μιχάλης Γενίτσαρης)
Dimitris Gogos (Δημήτρης Γκόγκος (Μπαγιαντέρας))
Babis Goles (Μπάμπης Γκολές)
Agathonas Iakovidis (Αγάθωνας Ιακωβίδης)
Adonis Katinaris (Αντώνης Κατινάρης)
Maríka Nínou (Μαρίκα Νίνου)
Stratos Pagioumtzis (Στράτος Παγιουμτζής)
Yiánnis Papaioánnou (Γιάννης Παπαϊωάννου)
Vangelis Papazoglou (Βαγγέλης Παπάζογλου)
Spyros Peristeris (Σπύρος Περιστέρης)
Stelios Perpiniadis (Στέλιος Περπινιάδης)
Dimitris Semsis (Δημήτριος Σέμσης (Σαλονικιός)
Christos Syrpos (Χρήστος Σύρπος (Χρηστάκης))
Panayótis Toúndas (Παναγιώτης Τούντας)
Giovan Tsaous (Γιοβάν Τσαούς)
Prodromos Tsaousakis (Πρόδρομος Τσαουσάκης)
Vassílis Tsitsánis (Βασίλης Τσιτσάνης)
Markos Vamvakaris (Μάρκος Βαμβακάρης)
Antonios Katinaris (Αντώνιος Κατινάρης)
Maria Katinari (Μαρία Κατινάρη)
Eleni Vitali (Ελένι Βιτάλη)
Glykeria (Γλυκερία)

External bonds

Rebetiko.gr : page on the rebetiko
Rebetiko.org: humorous site on Rebetiko

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