Hora + ska = dance music

ELEANOR RADFORD

In English, a portmanteau occurs when two existing words are combined to create a new word with a new meaning. The Halifax-based instrumental ensemble Gypsophilia achieved the musical equivalent when they combined the musical genres of hora and ska, creating a new sound. Now the world has Horska, the sound and the word, which also happens to be the title of the EP the band is currently launching with their biggest tour to date.

It was Alec Frith, one of the band’s three guitarists, who set up ska for the musical marriage. “I had brought in a ska song I had been working on,” he told the Independent. “I had been inspired to write it by the klezmer music we had been playing, and noticed that the only main difference between ska and klezmer rhythm guitar is the direction you strike the strings – klezmer being offbeat down strokes and ska, up strokes. While introducing the song to the band, Nick, our other rhythm guitarist, suggested trying a hora underneath the melody and that led us to come up with a way of going back and forth between the two feels.”

The klezmer flavor comes courtesy the band’s double bass player Adam Fine, who said he has been interested in klezmer since high school. Armed with a set of records devoted to “radical Jewish culture,” Fine said, “I was really getting into John Zorn’s music at the time – and my grandfather, who was a trumpet player, said to me that he would show me how to play a few traditional klezmer things. He taught me a few freylekhs and some very cheesy waltzes – most of which I play to this day.”

Gypsophilia is not a band of purists intent on preserving musical traditions. The band’s seven members “all come from different musical backgrounds – some jazz, some classical, some reggae, etc.,” said Fine. “So, we have different visions and different expectations for the music we make together. It’s an amalgam. Or better yet, a mish-mash.”

He explained, “Real music breathes, changes, grows in relation to the things that are around it. Klezmer became what it is because of Romanian music, waltzes, Roma music ... French, Italian and German legit music ... and, certainly, in the 20th century, it took on all kinds of jazz and pop music sounds. And you hear klezmer’s influence on other things, too.”

“Music has always progressed and assimilated other musics,” Frith noted, pointing out that if Gypsophilia’s major influence, Django Reinhardt, “hadn’t let Louie Armstrong into his musical world, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Much of what the band does belies an infatuation with times gone by. Gypsophilia was conceived as a tribute to Reinhardt and the Gypsy jazz of the 1930s. The band released two gorgeous pieces of stop-motion animation created by artists Sidney Smith and Jason Levangie as music videos for the songs “Horska” and “Agricola & Sarah.” In their hometown of Halifax they regularly play to swing-dancing crowds decked out in vintage finery.

“We’re nostalgic clearly for a past none of us ever experienced,” Fine mused. “We love dressing up, which isn’t exactly au courant. None of us thinks the past is necessarily better than the present,” he clarified, “but we certainly find some of the esthetics of the past pretty charming.”

At any Gypsophilia show one would likely witness a mash-up of genres and demographics. “We have 20-year-olds and 80-year-olds at our shows,” Fine said. Frith added, “The thing I enjoy most about playing music that has nostalgic references is the diversity in age that it appeals to. With no lyrics and so many different influences we seem to alienate very few people, especially if they are looking for a good time.”

That good time will be coming to the Vancouver International Jazz Festival later this month when Gypsophilia plays the Robson Stage on June 23, 6:45 p.m.

“All festivals are great,” Fine said diplomatically. “People are just so ready to check stuff out. There is this great trust that the festivals are bringing in great music ... they just show up with open minds.”

Frith, however, has no qualms about being partisan: “We do have the most fun in Vancouver. Our last show to thousands in the sun in David Lam Park was a highlight.”

Eleanor Radford is a Vancouver freelance writer.

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