May 2002

Seatle Sound
Archive <& /articles/seat_archive.tmp &>

By Jason West

Near the center of Bucharest, through an alleyway off of Calea Victoriei (Victory Street), lies Romania's foremost jazz venue Green Hours Jazz Café. Its cobblestone courtyard, shaded by trees and surrounded by ancient buildings, is a fair-weather gathering place for students, intellectuals, artists, actors, bohemians and music enthusiasts who convene daily around wooden picnic tables to share a drink and a word or two. At night their eyes and ears focus on the café's outdoor stage for a performance of live jazz or grass-roots theater. No doubt Green Hours would have delighted Mihai Eminescu, Romania's greatest poet. Nicolae Ceausescu, Romania's greatest tyrant would never have allowed it.

In the winter months, jazz at Green Hours goes underground. A subterranean stairway lined with art posters announcing previous jazz events at the café leads to a cavern of arched booths, shadowy nooks and a bandstand bathed in aqua-colored light at the rear of the whale. Here clientele speak in hushed tones as jazz groups perform and occasionally record live for the café's independent label, Green Hours Records.

Green Hours Jazz Café opened in 1994 under the direction of its owner Mr. Voicu Radescu. A calm, easy-going, artisan-businessman, Radescu is one of a new breed of Romanian entrepreneurs who has flooded the country's free market economy since the overthrow of Communism in 1989. At Green Hours, Radescu supervises a loyal staff, offering guests a limited menu of appetizers, coffee, beer, alcohol and Murfatlar, a popular brand of Romanian wine. (Romanians like to drink, and as in most European countries, the legal drinking age is rarely enforced. In addition, clubs and restaurants stay open as long as customers remain.) With cigarette in hand and canine companion, Otto, by his side, Radescu was kind enough to speak with me and my traveling companion/translator Ioana Dima when we visited his café last September.

While pointing out that the popular sounds of rock, rap and manele (gypsy-influenced dance music) have inundated the nightclubs and discos of present-day Bucharest, Radescu admits that the market for jazz is almost non-existent. In fact, Green Hours was the only venue we found in the city presenting jazz on a regular basis. "Not everyone has a knowledge of jazz," he noted, "but the people listen, and they are coming more for the music, when at first they were just curious." Indeed, on the night we visited, the café was packed to hear a young saxophonist and his quartet (see Mihai Iordache interview on page 7). Especially pleasing to Radescu is the age of his clientele-"from 16 to 60"-who visit Green Hours in search of what he thoughtfully calls "a higher form of entertainment."

A music admirer since birth, Radescu never considered himself a fan of jazz. He especially disliked the sound of the saxophone, until the day a friend introduced him to the instrument's disparate jazz voices on recordings by Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Since that day, Radescu became absorbed with various styles of America's classical music and the seed of Green Hours Jazz Café was planted.

While Americans tend to gorge ourselves on non-stop entertainment, the only forms of entertainment available to Romanians before their revolution were activities sanctioned by the State. Government enforced leisure, such as Cintarea Romaniei (Singing for Romania), saw thousands of Romanian citizens regularly transported to large stadiums, attired in folk costumes, and required to sing State-approved Romanian folk songs as the rest of the country watched the compulsory "festivities" on State-run television.

During Ceausescu's dictatorial reign (1968-1989), the Securitate, (security police) monitored Romanian citizens with Big Brother-like vigilance. Phones were tapped, mail opened, religion discouraged and the performance of popular music-with its rebellious lyrics emanating from the West-was officially denounced. Oddly enough, jazz flourished during this era of repressive Communist control.

According to Radescu, "[Jazz] was one of the types of music that was tolerated" largely due to the fact that respected musicians like Johnny Raducanu-perhaps Romania's best-known jazz pianist-were playing jazz "like a lonely man-fara cuvinte [without words]." Jazz, minus the presence of possibly subversive lyrics, was allowed to be performed without censorship. "Thus a lot of Romanians found a refuge in jazz," relates Radescu, "like it was the case for me and others that were listening with great pleasure to this music."

Jazz festivals appeared annually in cities throughout the country, attracting large crowds-even Communist party members were reportedly coming to listen. "They [the Communists] didn't see any direct danger in it. Although there were times in Sibiu [a city located in the Transylvanian region of Romania] when I saw a lot of people with long hair gathering around, and I was going with my hair in a pony-tale so they wouldn't see me," revealed Radescu, sporting a wide grin. Aside from State-approved national folk music, jazz was something new, and people lined up to hear it.

Then, in December 1989, the walls of tyranny came tumbling down in a violent revolution that toppled Ceausescu and ended with his execution on Christmas day. In Bucharest, civilians battled the Securitate, with some of the fiercest fighting occurring just blocks from Green Hours' present location. Today, bullet-riddled buildings and brightly decorated crucifixes remain as vivid reminders of the horrific and glorious events of the revolution.

With the fall of Communism, the gates of freedom opened wide, deluging Romania with goods and commodities-including music-previously unavailable. As the popularity of pop, rock, and manele skyrocketed, jazz retreated to the margins of the country's musical consciousness. Young musicians turned their interests toward the monetary rewards of the popular music market, and, according to Radescu, "only people that were really into it, that intellectualized jazz and played with some feeling, stuck to it."

One such musician is Lucian Ban, a 33-year-old classically-trained pianist from Cluj, a city in Transylvania. Ban first discovered the piano at age 11. As an adolescent he studied jazz and classical piano with Mr. Gyorgy Joldt in Cluj. He attended the Bucharest Academy of Music and Bucharest University in the mid 1990s, while simultaneously embarking on a career as a professional jazz musician. Influenced by the music of Ellington, Monk, Coltrane, Mingus, Abdullah Ibrahim and Randy Weston, in addition to the rich folk music of his native land, Ban has since blossomed into a highly regarded jazz pianist and composer.

In 1993, Ban formed Jazz Unit, a group that became the house band at Green Hours and contributed a great deal to the success of jazz at the café. In 2000 the pianist moved to New York City to begin jazz studies at the New School of Music and perform with some of the world's finest jazz musicians, but not before releasing two recordings on Radescu's Green Hours record label.

Changes (1998), recorded live at Green Hours, features the Jazz Unit in sextet form. Along with tracks by Miles Davis ("Jean Pierre") and Ornette Coleman ("Lonely Woman"), Ban's recording debut includes a dedication to Abdullah Ibrahim and spirited performances from Eddie Neumann (saxophones), Vlaicu Golcea (double bass), Adrian Stefanescu (drums), with rhythmic support from Maurille Amousou and Fabrice Doutouma (percussion).

Jazz Unit's follow-up disc From Now On (1999) was recorded at National Radio Studios in Bucharest and features guest artist Ferdi Schukking on soprano saxophone. Offering an intimate look at Ban the composer, this recording includes his own arrangements of Duke's "Come Sunday" and Coltrane's "A Love Supreme," in addition to a pair of solo piano works inspired by the Transylvania of Ban's childhood. According to Radescu, a thousand copies of each disc were printed and distributed at the café.

As night fell on the courtyard and the evening's musicians began to assemble their instruments, Radescu and I exchanged gifts of music. He presented me with a collection of Green Hours recordings, including the two Jazz Unit discs. I, in turn, offered him a selection of works by Seattle jazz musicians that I had brought with me. Although his English was limited and my Romanian was minimal, the language of jazz once again proved universal. A gracious host, Voicu Radescu promised in parting to share the music I gave him with the small, dedicated group of musicians living in Bucharest-players eager to hear new, independent jazz from around the world, especially America.

Melodica soptire a raului, ce geme,
Concertul, ce-l intoana al pasarilor cor,
Cantarea in cadenta a frunzelor, ce freme,
Nascur-acolo-n mine soptiri de-un gingas dor.

The melodic whispering of the river that groans,
The concert of the birds' choir,
The rhythmic singing of the leaves that murmur,
Bore in me whispers of sweet melancholy

Poetry by Mihai Eminescu, Din Strainatate (From Abroad), 1866. Translation by Ioana Dima.