Fanfare Ciocarlia

Fanfare Ciocarlia

Fanfare Ciocarlia is a Romanian Romani Balkan brass band active since 1990, with roots in the village of Zece Prajini in northeastern Romania and an origin also associated with Iași. The group is made up of Roma musicians and is led in its village tradition by clarinet player Ioan Ivancea, later associated in the lineup with Oprică Ivancea. It is a brass band of nine to twelve members, and its instrumentation includes trumpets, tenor and baritone horns, tubas, clarinets, saxophones, bass drum and percussion.

Style and repertoire

The band is known for a very fast, high-energy sound built on complex rhythms and rapid clarinet, saxophone and trumpet solos, sometimes performed at more than 200 beats per minute. Its music draws on Romani and Romanian folk dance traditions, while also borrowing from Turkish, Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian styles. The repertoire also includes material taken from international radio, Hollywood and Bollywood. Their lyrics are usually in Romani or Romanian, and they do not use sheet music in performance.

Origins in Zece Prajini

Zece Prajini is a Romani village where many men traditionally work as subsistence farmers or in factories in nearby towns, and where brass playing is a family tradition passed from father to son. Music at weddings and baptisms is part of the local life, and brass instruments are favoured because farming leaves fingers too rough for string instruments. When the band is first brought to wider attention by the German sound engineer Henry Ernst in 1996, it is recognised as one of the few surviving Gypsy brass bands in Romania and as a group playing in a style shaped by isolation from contemporary popular music.

Recording and international recognition

Henry Ernst and Helmut Neumann help establish the band’s early touring and management through Asphalt Tango. Fanfare Ciocarlia records its debut album, Radio Pascani, at Studio Electrecord in Bucharest in 1997, and it is released on Piranha Musik in 1998. The album becomes a major success, receives strong reviews, and sells more than 150,000 CD copies. The follow-up albums Baro Biao and Iag Bari are also recorded in Bucharest and released on Piranha Musik, extending the group’s international profile. Iag Bari includes material influenced by New Orleans jazz standards and features the Bulgarian vocal group Angelite on “Lume Lume”.

Later albums, collaborations and tours

In 2005, Gili Garabdi - Ancient Secrets of Gypsy Brass is produced in Zece Prajini and Berlin and includes the band’s versions of the James Bond theme and Duke Ellington’s “Caravan”, both of which become regular parts of the repertoire. The group later records Queens & Kings, which brings together guest vocalists including Esma Redzepova, Saban Bajramovic, Kaloome, Ljiljana Butler, Jony Iliev, Florentina Sandu, Dan Armeanca and Mitsou. The release also includes “Farewell March”, a funeral ballad sung by Ioan Ivancea, and “Born To Be Wild”, recorded for the soundtrack of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The band is also commissioned to record “Born to Be Wild” for that film.

In 2011 the group works on the Balkan Brass Battle sessions and later tours with Serbian brass band Boban & Marco Markovic Orkestar. In 2013 it records in Toronto with Canadian guitarist Adrian Raso, leading to The Devil’s Tale, released by Asphalt Tango Records in 2014. The project shows a slower, more atmospheric side of the band, and it later tours with Raso and his rock ensemble. Fanfare Ciocarlia also releases a live album, a vinyl compilation titled Best Of Gypsy Brass, and a DVD package containing a full concert and Iag Bari.

Concerts, awards and media use

Since first touring internationally, the band plays more than two thousand concerts in more than 70 countries, including extensive touring across Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia and North America. It appears at Womad Festival and at Womadelaide and Womad Taranaki. The group wins the BBC Radio 3 World Music Award for Europe in 2006.

Fanfare Ciocarlia’s music is used widely in film, television and club culture. “Asfalt Tango” appears in other recordings and films, including Hey U by Basement Jaxx, the animated film Fallen Art, and the short film Son. The band appears performing in a Hamburg club in Fatih Akın’s Gegen die Wand, and its music is also associated with Balkan Beats, the club format coined by DJ Robert Soko. Their work is regularly played and remixed in Balkan music scenes, and the band appears on the cover of Garth Cartwright’s Princes Amongst Men: Journeys With Gypsy Musicians.