The Lords and Ladies of Little Egypt : Kalyi Jag/Odjila/Lilia & The Golden Brass Band, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (GB) - 16 sept. 1988

Kalyi Jag, a Hungarian Romani band, were: Jozsef Balogh vocal/whistle/oral bass/tambura/guitar/mandolin, Ágnes Kunstler vocal/fingersnapping, Béla Balogh vocal/water can/oral bass and Gusztav Varga vocal/whistle/guitar/spoons/oral bass. It is possible that Jozsef Nagy was present instead of Béla Balogh and maybe there were other homespun instruments. They played entertaining vocal and dance music and there were four dancers with them. Odjila’s members probably were Igor Dunjic-Zverzhanovski, Slobodan Simonovic, Davorka Bosnic, Sanja Uzelac, Boris Nikolic and maybe Andrej Stefanovic. Largely a vocal group, with guitars for accompaniment, they sang pieces that ranged from slow, emotion-drenched, songs of love, loss and yearning to others which began slowly only to accelerate towards the end into footstomping dances. The women did all the singing, I think. Their music comes from southeast Europe and they themselves from Yugoslavia. Lilia also sang moving and beautiful songs, this time with an unusual (for us) brass band accompaniment, led by Fedjat Sejdic on trumpet. This music was, and still is, a strong tradition in the Balkans, especially perhaps Serbia. A memorable concert.