Music: Baro Banda

The Festival Gardens

February 28, 2012

Apart from being a whole lot of fun, the Turkish/Australian gypsy band Baro Banda’s exuberant show at the Festival Gardens taught us a lot about the music that inspires these six peripatetic musicians.

Murat Yurcel, Alisha Brroks and Savas Zurnaci

The trick is in the rhythm, the “beat of nine”, which the band’s charismatic lead singer Murat Yucel demonstrated before leading us in clapping and then dancing to it. This nine-beat rhythm is behind much music for the belly dance, as well as Turkish and Greek folk songs. You can practice it at home: it goes 1 2 3 1-2, 1 2 3 1-2.

It’s a quite distinct feel from the rhythms of Western Europe and Africa in our musical DNA, and it evokes a different physical response from the blues and rock ‘n’ roll beats we’re used to.

That’s the driving wheel of the music. Its magic is the insinuating melody that weaves through and above the rhythm. In the hands of the band’s gypsy clarinet master Savas Zurnaci, those tunes led us away to different places and times.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian.