Album Review
Markos Bambekares 3
Markos Bambekares
Minos - EMI S.A.
[Joseito Fernandez is sitting at the desk frowning at a CD case. Compay Segundo walks past, thinking about something else.]
Joseito Fernandez: Listening to music teaches us many things. I have learnt that I am unable to read Greek.
Compay Segundo: That's an odd lesson. Surely you knew that before.
Joseito: Yes, but seldom have I had it impressed upon me as firmly as when I tried to understand this CD cover. Look. It's all big letters B with strange feet and triangles and this thing like a u with a drooping snout. I had to discover the man's name by looking him up in a library catalogue. The only parts I can decipher on my own are these dates on the back, 1930 - 1940. That must be the age of the recording. There is also a big '3' on the back and the front but I don't know what that means. They might have released three albums by him and this is the third one. I am only guessing.
Compay: On the cover he's playing a bouzouki.
J: Predominantly the music is this Markos singing and accompanying himself, with sometimes a woman or a man interjecting or a little piece of some other instrument in the background. On the ninth song he sings a duet.
C: They have harsh, painful voices.
J: It sounds like that at the start but you'll get used to it. There is beauty in the way the notes of the bouzouki are placed so sharply and precisely in the songs. The melody jingles like a little bell.
C: Mm.
J: Believe me, it is difficult to know what to make of it at first, but it has grown on me.
C: How many times have you listened to it?
J: Six. I am a dedicated reviewer.
C: And has it only just now grown on you, or did this happen before?
J: Only now. One has to accustom oneself. I told you, I know nothing about Greece! I know they have olive trees and the Mediterranean which dazzles us all with its blue surface; and a hot sky and the history, of course, with the gods, and people holding hands and dancing in circles, I think. They eat, ah, ah, dark, wet vine leaves and octopus with its toes curled up. Food from the sea and the food from the plants. Goats. Pan with his shaggy thighs. Statues. All of it nothing more than romantic tourist images from postcards. More will come to me.
C: The music sounds as if it is on stairs, now walking up a little way, now walking down. The songs are short.
J: Records were short back then. You could only fit in so much.
C: Here are more high-stepping noises from the bouzouki. Step-pause-step-pause. One-two-one-two. Rembétika, do you think?
J: How should I know: does it have 'rembétika' written on its forehead? The sound has dignity in it, I know that, when it walks slowly, for all the sharpness of its tone.
C: It's that sharpness that makes it difficult for me to listen to it. I feel as if I am being scolded by curdled milk.
J: The age of the recording might be a little bit to blame. Those old recording instruments sometimes make voices sound sharp. I enjoy these people who talk during the music: "Ah Markos," or what-they're-saying. It is like having an old ghost on the record.
C: See where interrupting will get you! You can be the man half-inside the edge of the fading photograph with the other half of you lost forever. You can have your whole ninety years of life reduced to that short moan of approval, "Ah, Markos." Would it have been better to remain silent?
J: Is it fair to judge it from our point of view? I think this is academic. Did you ever want to remain silent?
C: Never.
J: Well, then. Nor did Markos Bambekares and nor did this "Ah, Markos" person who gets no credit.
C: Unless the credit is in Greek.
J: Unless it is in Greek, yes, which I do not read.
C: And so we are back to the beginning.
