Šaban Bajramović (1936-2008)
Šaban Bajramović, one of the greatest musicians of our time, has died in poverty in the Serbian city of Niš. International and British newspapers (The Independent, The Times), have picked up on the news with about two weeks delay, and there are now obituaries in various languages that talk of his importance, like the one in Global Voices, which is also translated in Spanish. Some, as one can be expected, highlight more the extremely picturesque (and exotic) aspects of his life, thus somewhat failing to make the point of the importance of his music. So let me reiterate here: this man is one of the most important natural musical talents I have ever come across, I can never tire of listening to songs such as Djelem, djelem or Maki, maki.
In addition, Šaban Bajramović is the prototype of such memorable film characters like the whte-suited ‘godfather’ Ahmed from Emir Kusturica’s Time of the Gypsies
In cinema he appeared in the role of the Roma boy’s father in Goran Paskaljevc’s Guardian Angel (1987), a film which is believed to have had triggered the making of Kusturica’s Time of the Gypsies, and a smaller role in Macedonian Stole Popov’s Gypsy Magic (1997). These roles are listed on the imdb. But the fact that Šaban Bajramović is not credited as a musician here is a serious omission.
There are now numerous In Memoriam clips for Šaban to be found on YouTube. I thought that this one was really impressive.
Here is Maki, maki. Like it is often the case, there appears to be no live recording of Šaban performing it, and the image we see is from the CD on which the song is being distributed. The only name visible is the one of Goran Bregović, who made Šaban’s music internationally known (but who was also often accused of appropriating it without giving proper credit to the musician).
And here is Šaban himself singing one of his well-known songs, Maruska, which he has been performing in different variations on some of Bregovic’s CD’s. The person who posted the clip has only provided a line of text: Farewell to the King!
Amazon.com carries three CD’s with authentic Šaban Bajramović songs, all with titles relying on exotic allusions, such as Gypsy King & Drunkard
© Dina Iordanova
26 June 2008
Tags: Gypsy, Music, Popular culture, Roma
September 7th, 2008 at 12:03 am
David Altheer, freelance journalist from London (and a friend), sent me these comments to post here:
There are some infelicites in this excerpt:
“(S)aban Bajramoviæ,one of the greatest musicians of our time, has died in poverty in the Serbian city of Nis. International and British newspapers (The
Independent, The Times) have picked up on the news with about two weeks delay, and there are now obituaries in various languages that talk of his importance, like the one in Global Voices, which is also translated in Spanish.
Some, as one can expect, highlight more the extremely picturesque (and
exotic) aspects of his life, thus somewhat failing to make the point of
the importance of his music. So let me reiterate here: this man is one of the
most important natural musical talents I have ever come across, I can never tire of listening to songs such as *Djelem, djelem* or*Maki, maki*.”
Now, Wikipedia may say that this musician died in poverty, but that is questionable. It was not the view of his adult daughter, to whom I spoke when I was researching my obituary in The Times. It’s slightly misleading to say that British newspapers “picked up on the news [of his death] with about two weeks’ delay” because that is normal practice with obituaries, unless the person is extraordinarily famous. Obits are sometimes published by quality papers even months after the death. Another freelance I know wrote an obit of this Rom for The Guardian, but it was not used at all. It indicates not anti-Gypsyism, merely that other more prominent people died in subsequent weeks and there was no space.
My obit was certainly not one of those, highlighting the picturesque (and exotic) aspects of the musician’s life: from from it, I tried, for example, to kill a myth that he had many wives and mistresses. And I focused on his music. You, on the other hand, Dina, say that “(S)aban Bajramoviæ is the prototype of such memorable film characters like the white-suited ‘godfather’ Ahmed… and some of the most extremely exoticized Gypsy characters”. I think you’d have to be a little exotic in the first place to inspire such cinematic exoticism.