Kočani Orkestar meets Municipale Balcanica & Roberto Ottaviano

With regard to the Macedonian Kočani Orkestar, the boundary line between individual traditions is hard to spot. As is common practice with most Romani music ensembles, the group is a family business that consists of grandpas, fathers, brothers, sons, grandchildren along with friends and neighbours. There is hardly any Muslim, Christian or less solemn occasion that could not serve the men from Kočani as an excuse to unpack their instruments. Their rousing sound draws on Turkish janissaries, and echoes from the distant Rajasthan seem to reverberate. Scraps of jazz, funk, mambo, samba, rumba, mariachi, Indian Bollywood-sounds and Chinese pop songs – it is all in the rampant mix.

The banda Municipale Balcanica is native to Apulia, on the other side of the Adriatic. “the beacon” from Bari, Roberto Ottaviano, is the driving force on behalf of jazz. With passion and vigour, with wit and a grain of sentiment, the Southern Italians create a Mediterranean musical playground in which they tie together the common roots of the Balkans and the Apennine Peninsula with a ribbon made of jazz. The meeting of these two powerful bands promises to be one of the great spectacles of JazzFest Berlin 2010.