The Okros Ensemble
I Left My Sweet Homeland (Rounder)
The Okros Ensemble, along with fellow Hungarians Taraf de Haidouks, have made a career from mining Hungarian, Romanian, and gypsy folk legends — music so full of sorrowful tales that it would make Bram Stoker blush. Usually, revivalists who dedicate themselves to playing a style of music that no longer exists tend to cloak their work in nostalgic hues. Rounding off the sharp edges, the end result is something that may or may not be all that authentic. There’s undoubtedly some of this at play with the Okros Ensemble, but arranger and ethnomusicologist Laszlo Kelemen keeps this sad and sublime music ringing true. With its furious tempos, screeching violins, and dissonant microtones, it often resembles a kind of gypsy speed metal, and yet the concoction is undeniably enchanting. Gypsies have always infused a jazz spirit into their playing, and here, leader and violinist Csaba Okros guides his group through a dizzying array of improvisations and tempo changes. Had he not chosen such an obscure instrument, the cymbalom (a type of hammered dulcimer), Kalman Balogh might be as well known as his famed gypsy counterpart, Django Reinhardt. He’s a virtuoso of the first order. And guest vocalist Agnes Herczku, whose haunting voice intersperses the album with undeniable passion, sings the title song which has, over generations, come to symbolize the plight of the region’s displaced citizens. “Dear God, grant me shelter,” it translates, “I am so tired of wandering.”
This article appears in April 27 • 2001.