Fidel "El Jefe" Castro is seriously threatened - undisputed for decades - the position of the president who (allegedly) has been assassinated the most. Recently, Aleksandar "Chefe" Vučić from Serbia has been blowing his neck. Cuba among the plums. In the capital of the "sickness of the Balkans", on that St. Patrick's evening, Irish music oozed from the side cafes, but I still continued towards the Youth Center of Belgrade, as a sign of solidarity with another, even more distant but-always-close-to-us island, which, again, had no electricity that day. Ireland, still, is not pulling White-fronted orangutan.
FLAME AND PASSION
In the same week, the upper/smaller hall of Dom omladine, "Amerikana", hosted two concerts with a strong ethnic influence: the first with a distinctly dance atmosphere - in the spirit of "dancing" to which that space once belonged - and the second in a "seated arrangement". For the first time in Belgrade, Issac Delgado is the star of Cuban salsa, precisely on the tour marking 35 years of his career. Now, as far as Cuban is concerned, unlike music and dance genres that originated from the Island (conga, rumba, mambo), salsa is extraterritorial, i.e. it was cooked in the diaspora (USA), even more so in New York than in Little Havana (Miami), located opposite the Island. Although there are Cuban spices in that sauce (salsa) added at the very beginning by emigrants Machito and Celia Cruz, the ingredients from other Latin American countries are no weaker, and even the most famous Cuban electrified, long-lived salsa bands "Los Van Van" and "NG La Banda" (the latter originated from I. Delgado) are more similar, for example, to Gloria Estefan (Miami Sound Machine) than to the country's original traditions.
Delgado was careful to return to his roots from time to time, through collaborations (Kačao, Pablo Milanez, Orquesta Aragon) and paid tribute to Silvio Rodríguez, the group "Sonora Matancera", etc., and after a long period in the USA and Spain, he marked his return to Cuba with the album Made In Havana (2016, Egrem). The series of Grammy nominations continued with "Lluvia y Fuego" (2019, Tropix/Egrem) and "Mira como vengo" (2025, ANZN), and in the "Amerikana" hall (with tickets from 2000-3000 dinars) he was welcomed by a playful audience ranging from the local small Cuban and generally Latino community, to students of dance schools and members of salsa clubs. Of course, the music was blaring from the loudspeakers, the party was good even an hour before the musicians went on the small stage, and ten accompanying musicians came out: two keyboardists and a percussionist each, a double bassist, a singer and the main part - four sharp brass players. So, there is no bass drum (if we accept that as a striking difference from timba), but local Igor Vince, whose "Binta Sound" is also the co-organizer of the concert, immediately joined them on percussion.
Isak's live voice is neither particularly impressive nor important; there is a bouquet of accompaniments, the boss is more of a host and leader through long tracks with formal and correct solos and multiplied choruses. In short, the spirit of Varadero rather than Havana, one of the more easily recognizable elements of Cuban music, but closer to the Puerto Rican sound and other immigrant sounds in the US, with less of that enticing feeling in species that force neither speed nor power, offer not fireworks but flames. Passion.
PRECISION AND VIRTUE
A few days later it is not scheduled Hungarian Sisters' Czardas rather than "Söndörgő" (in weak Hungarian: "Šenderge"), so the listening audience again flocked to Dom omladine with tickets for 1200 din. With the support of the National Cultural Fund of Hungary and the local one Collegium Hungaricum, organized by the "Ring Ring" association, superb world music the band "Söndörgő" - known for interpreting the traditional music of the southern Slavs - returned to the same building where it premiered 10 years ago, at the festival Everyone in Belgrade. The line-up is like the "Beach Boys": three siblings, a cousin and a double bassist friend. The four Eredics are descendants of members of the long-lived Vujičić ensemble, which also dealt with South Slavic heritage for decades - "their musical education began nine months before their birth", so that all four taught at the music academy in Budapest.
"Söndörgő" mostly use tambour(s), all kinds, a whole flotilla, but each of Eredić also plays several other instruments - clarinet/sax and even kaval (for the deeply breathed "Zajdi, zajdi"); trumpet; percussion instruments; accordion/flute - so virtuoso that it is impossible to determine which are their "parent" or "first" instruments. Repertoire-wise, they interpret Bach's "Goldberg Variations" with equal ease and our jumps/scramblers - yes, on Good morning, with slightly angular accents common in Vojvodina - but in their rich opus they also played with the Balkan sax prodigy Feruz Mustafov (In concert, 2007, Sndrg Music), as well as jazz saxophonist, our acquaintance Chris Potter (album Gyezz, 2024, GroundUP Music). If you didn't know how they spread fame and sing in Serbian so that the whole world can understand them, I recommend the editions Tamburising Lost Music of the Balkans (2010, World Village/Harmonia Mundi) and Tamburocket Hungarian Fireworks (2014, Riverboat/World Music Network). The latter ends with the hilarious "Kolovođa", one of the highlights of this concert as well.
We have also had the opportunity to have excellent Hungarian ethnic bands perform live for us, but somehow "closed" in their folklore. We are not used to our northern neighbors running into us via Slavonia, sneaking through Vojvodina, penetrating Šumadija with a flute, then breaking through Pčinja through N. Macedonia and circling back through the Wallachia mountains. "Söndörgő" weaves around golden tambura threads like lightning, so you understand that the entire instrumental knitting is golden with them, only the "voices" are changed and interwoven, as is not the case even in Dixieland. It is all the more difficult to believe that instead of disorderedness and counterpoint, we got precision and discipline, when after long bare-handed sections on the tarabuki, the fingers - they must be careful! - they flawlessly pick pearls with a laser. And no violins at all!
Last year, "Söndörgő" celebrated 30 years of their career with an album XXX (GroundUP Music), so that at their concert at the end of December in Budapest, among the guests will be bassist Branko-Bako Jovanović, a Roma from Serbia, born and living in Vienna. This was only their second performance together and Bako joined in on several occasions, of course in a tuxedo and bow tie amidst casually dressed Hungarians and their almost rocker drumming. Since Bako excelled in last year's competition Guitar Art Festival in Belgrade ("Vreme", no. 1794), let's just add that on this occasion too, he raised the joy of playing music together and the enjoyment of all those present at the concert.
We are not connected by authoritarian politicians, but by the culture and cooperation of such people.
