Melody and harmony

Dimitrios Semsis (lyra), Agapios Tomboulis (banjo) and Roza Eskenazi, the Smyrna Trio (Athens, 1932)

The melodies of most rebetiko songs are thus often considered to follow one or more dromoi (δρόμοι, Greek for 'roads' or 'routes'; singular is dromos (δρόμος).^{[nb 1]} The names of the dromoi are derived in all but a few cases^{[nb 2]} from the names of various Turkish modes, also known as makam.^[6]

However, the majority of rebetiko songs have been accompanied by instruments capable of playing chords according to the Western harmonic system, and have thereby been harmonized in a manner which corresponds neither with conventional European harmony, nor with Ottoman art music, which is a monophonic form normally not harmonized. Furthermore, rebetika has come to be played on instruments tuned in equal temperament, in direct conflict with the more complex pitch divisions of the makam system.^[6]

During the later period of the rebetiko revival there has been a cultural entente between Greek and Turkish musicians, mostly of the younger generations. One consequence of this has been a tendency to overemphasize the makam aspect of rebetiko at the expense of the European components and, most significantly, at the expense of perceiving and problematizing this music's truly syncretic nature.^{[nb 3]}

However it is important to note in this context that a considerable proportion of the rebetiko repertoire on Greek records until 1936 was not dramatically different, except in terms of language and musical "dialect", from Ottoman café music (played by musicians of various ethnic backgrounds) which the mainland Greeks called Smyrneika. This portion of the recorded repertoire was played almost exclusively on the instruments of Smyrneika/Ottoman café music, such as kanonaki, santouri, politikí lyra (πολίτικη λύρα), tsimbalo (τσίμπαλο, actually identical with the Hungarian cimbalom, or the Romanian țambal), and clarinet.^[1]

Scales

The scales used in rebetiko music are the traditional western major and minor scales, as well as a series of eastern makams, influenced by the Ottoman classical music. Some of them include rast, uşşâk, hijaz (or "phrygian dominant scale"), saba(h) and nahawand.

Rhythms

Most rebetiko songs are based on traditional Greek or Anatolian dance rhythms. Most common are:

• Syrtos, a general name for many Greek dances (including the Nisiotika), (mostly a ⁴
  ₄ meter in various forms)
• Zeibekiko, a ⁹
  ₄ or a ⁹
  ₈ meter, in its various forms
• Hasaposervikos, including various kinds of Greek music. It is also the fast version of hasapiko (like ⁴
  ₄ and ²
  ₄ meter)
• Hasapiko, a ⁴
  ₄ meter and the fast version hasaposerviko in a ²
  ₄ meter
• Antikristos or Karsilamas and argilamas (a ⁹
  ₈ meter)
• Kamilierikos (a ⁹
  ₈ meter) and aptalikos, broken down into sixteenths, (slow version a ⁹
  ₄ and fast version a ⁹
  ₁₆ meter in various forms
• Tsifteteli, cheerful dance for women (a ⁴
  ₄)
• Bolero, in a few songs, mainly for guitar (a ³
  ₄)

Various other rhythms are used too.

Taxim

There is one component within the rebetiko tradition which is common to many musical styles within Eastern musical spheres. This is the freely improvised unmeasured prelude, within a given dromos/makam, which can occur at the beginning or in the middle of a song. This is known in Greek as taxim or taximi (ταξίμ or ταξίμι) after the Arabic word usually transliterated as taqsim or taksim.

The bouzouki

Martinus Rørbye (1835): Leonidas Gailas da Athina, Fabricatore di bossuchi

Trixordo or three course (three double string) bouzouki

The bouzouki was apparently not particularly well-known among the refugees from Asia Minor, but had been known by that name in Greece since at least 1835, from which year a drawing by the Danish artist Martinus Rørbye has survived. It is a view of the studio of the Athenian luthier Leonidas Gailas (Λεωνίδας Γάϊλας), whom the artist describes as Fabricatore di bossuchi. The drawing clearly shows a number of bouzouki-like instruments. Despite this evidence, we still know nothing of the early history of the instrument's association with what came to be called rebetiko.^[7] Recent research has however uncovered a number of hitherto unknown references to the instrument during the 19th and early 20th centuries, including evidence of its established presence in the Peloponnese.^[8]

Although known in the rebetiko context, and often referred to in song lyrics, well before it was allowed into the recording studio, the bouzouki was first commercially recorded not in Greece, but in America, in 1926, when the Peloponnesian musician Konstandinos Kokotis (1878 – after 1948) recorded two Peloponnesian folk songs with the accordionist Ioannis Sfondilias.^[6] This recording, reissued for the first time in 2013,^[8] reveals a "folk" melodic style never recorded before or since. The first recording to feature the instrument clearly in a recognisable somewhat more "modern" melodic role, was made in 1929, in New York.^[8][9] Three years later the first true bouzouki solo was recorded by Ioannis Halikias, also in New York, in January 1932.^[10]

In Greece the bouzouki had been allowed into a studio for the very first time a few months previously, in October 1931. In the hands of Thanassis Manetas (1870-ca 1943), together with the tsimbalo player Yiannis Livadhitis, it can be heard accompanying the singers Konstantinos Masselos, aka Nouros, and Spahanis, on two discs, three songs in all.^[1][8]

These early commercial recordings in America and in Greece had however been preceded by a group of documentary recordings, consisting of one shellac 78 rpm disc and five wax cylinders, made in Görlitz, Germany in July 1917, during WWI. The amateur bouzouki player Konstandinos Kalamaras accompanied a professional Byzantine singer, Konstandinos Vorgias, and an amateur singer, Apostolos Papadiamantis. These three men were among 6500 Greek soldiers interned as guests of Germany in an ex-POW camp in the small town of Görlitz at the Polish border, from September 1916 until their release in February 1919.^[11]

It was not until October 1932, in the wake of the success of Halikias' New York recording, which immediately met with great success in Greece, that Markos Vamvakaris made his first recordings with the bouzouki. These recordings marked the real beginning of the bouzouki's recorded career in Greece, a career which continues unbroken to the present day.^[11]

Other instruments

The core instruments of rebetiko, from the mid-1930s onwards, have been the bouzouki,^[8][11] the baglamas and the guitar. Other instruments included accordion, politiki (Constantinopolitan) lyra (sometimes other lyra were used), clarinet, kanonaki, oud, santur, violin and finger-cymbals.^[1] Other instruments heard on rebetiko recordings include: double bass, laouto, mandola, mandolin and piano.^[11] In some recordings, the sound of clinking glass may be heard. This sound is produced by drawing worry beads (komboloi) against a fluted drinking glass, originally an ad hoc and supremely effective rhythmic instrument, probably characteristic of teké and taverna milieux, and subsequently adopted in the recording studios.^[1]

Origins

Rebetiko probably originated in the music of the large (mainly) coastal cities with large Greek communities of western Anatolia during the Ottoman era. In these cities the cradles of rebetiko were likely the ouzeri, the hashish dens (tekedes) with hookahs, coffee shops and even the prison. In view of the paucity of documentation prior to the era of sound recordings it is difficult to assert further facts on the very early history of this music.^{[nb 6]} There is a certain amount of recorded Greek material from the first two decades of the 20th century, recorded in Constantinople/Istanbul, in Egypt and in America, of which isolated examples have some bearing on rebetiko, such as in the very first case of the use of the word itself on a record label.^[21] But there are no recordings from this early period which give an inkling of the local music of Piraeus such as first emerged on disc in 1931 (see above).

Smyrna style

During the early 20th century, the main centre of rebetiko music was the multi-national port of Smyrna (modern Izmir) in Asia Minor. The musicians of Smyrna were influenced not only from the eastern sounds inside the Ottoman empire, but also from the European-style music of the many European communities of the city, most notably the Italians. Smyrneiki Estudiantina was a group of musicians playing popular music for Greeks worldwide. After the Great fire of Smyrna many of them (Panagiotis Toundas, Spyros Peristeris, Giorgos Vidalis, Anestis Delias and others) fled to Greece contributing to the development of the rebetiko style music in Greece.

1922–1932

In the wake of the Asia Minor Catastrophe and the population exchange of 1923, huge numbers of refugees settled in Piraeus, Thessaloniki, Volos and other harbor cities. They brought with them both European and Anatolian musical instruments and musical elements, including Ottoman café music, and, often neglected in accounts of this music, a somewhat Italianate style with mandolins and choral singing in parallel thirds and sixths.

Many of these Greek musicians from Asia Minor were highly competent musicians. Initially an "Athenean Estudiantina" was established with Giorgos Vidalis and some musicians of the old Smyrneiki Estudiantina. Other musicians became studio directors (A&R men) for the major companies, for example Spyros Peristeris (who played mandolin, guitar, piano and later bouzouki), Panagiotis Toundas (primarily a mandolinist) and the violin virtuoso Giannis Dragatsis (Oghdhondakis). The musical personalities of Peristeris and Toundas in particular came to have enormous influence on the further development of recorded rebetiko. While from the middle of the 1920s a substantial number of Anatolian-style songs were recorded in Greece, examples of Piraeus-style rebetiko song first reached shellac in 1931 (see above).

1930s

Rebetes in Karaiskaki, Piraeus (1933). Left Vamvakaris with bouzouki, middle Batis with guitar.

During the 1930s, the relatively sophisticated musical styles met with, and cross-fertilised, with the more heavy-hitting local urban styles exemplified by the earliest recordings of Markos Vamvakaris and Batis.^{[GH 1][22]}

This historical process has led to a currently used terminology intended to distinguish between the clearly Asia Minor oriental style, often called "Smyrneïka", and the bouzouki-based style of the 1930s, often called Piraeus style.^{[nb 7]} Also, the use of mandolin totally vanished.

Piraeus Quartet from right: Anestis Delias (aka Artemis), Yiorgos Batis, Markos Vamvakaris, Stratos Pagioumtzis (mid-1930)

By the end of the 1930s rebetiko had reached what can reasonably be called its classic phase, in which elements of the early Piraeus style, elements of the Asia Minor style, clearly European and Greek folk music elements, had fused to generate a genuinely syncretic musical form. Simultaneously, with the onset of censorship, a process began in which rebetiko lyrics slowly began to lose what had been their defining underworld character. This process extended over more than a decade.

Metaxas censorship, new directions

In 1936, the 4th of August Regime under Ioannis Metaxas was established and with it, the onset of censorship. Some of the subject matter of rebetiko songs was now considered disreputable and unacceptable. During this period, when the Metaxas dictatorship subjected all song lyrics to censorship, song composers would rewrite lyrics, or practice self-censorship before submitting lyrics for approval.^[23] The music itself was not subject to censorship, although proclamations were made recommending the "Europeanisation" of the regarded outcoming Anatolian music, which led to certain radio stations banning amanedes in 1938, i.e. on the basis of music rather than lyrics. This was, however, not bouzouki music. The term amanedes, (sing. amanes, Gr. αμανέδες, sing. αμανές) refers to a kind of improvised sung lament, in ummeasured time, sung in a particular dromos/makam. The amanedes were perhaps the most pointedly oriental kind of songs in the Greek repertoire of the time.^{[24][nb 8]}

Metaxas closed also all the tekedes (hashish dens) in the country. References to drugs and other criminal or disreputable activities now vanished from recordings made in Greek studios, to reappear briefly in the first recordings made at the resumption of recording activity in 1946.^[6] In the United States, however, a flourishing Greek musical production continued, with song lyrics apparently unaffected by censorship, (see below) although, strangely, the bouzouki continued to be rare on American recordings until after WWII.^[1]

It is notable that Rebetiko music was also rejected by the Greek Left because of its "reactionary" (according to the Communist Party of Greece) and subculture character and the drug references.

Postwar period

Recording activities ceased during the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II (1941–1944), and did not resume until 1946; that year, during a very short period, a handful of uncensored songs with drug references were recorded, several in multiple versions with different singers.^[6]

The scene was soon popularized further by stars like Vassilis Tsitsanis. His musical career had started in 1936, and continued during the war despite the occupation. A musical genius, he was both a brilliant bouzouki player and a prolific composer, with hundreds of songs to his credit. After the war he continued to develop his style in new directions, and under his wing, singers such as Sotiria Bellou, Ioanna Georgakopoulou, Stella Haskil and Marika Ninou made their appearance. Tsitsanis developed the "westernization" of the rebetiko and made it more known to large sections of the population, setting also the bases for the future laiko.

In 1948 Manos Hatzidakis shook the musical establishment by delivering his legendary lecture on rebetiko, until then with heavy underworld and cannabis use connections and consequently looked down upon. Hatzidakis focused on the economy of expression, the deep traditional roots and the genuineness of emotion displayed in rembetika, and exalted the likes of composers like Markos Vamvakaris and Vassilis Tsitsanis. Putting theory into practice, he adapted classic rembetika in his 1951 piano work, Six Folk Paintings (Έξι Λαϊκές Ζωγραφιές), which was later also presented as a folk ballet.

A modern four-course bouzouki

Parallel to the post-war career of Tsitsanis, the career of Manolis Chiotis took rebetiko and the Greek popular music in more radically new directions. Chiotis developed much more the "europeanisation/westernization" of the rebetiko. In 1953 he added a fourth pair of strings to the bouzouki, which allowed it to be played as a guitar and set the stage for the future 'electrification' of rebetiko.

Chiotis was also a bold innovator, importing Latin and South American rhythms (such as flamenco, rumba, mambo etc.), and concentrating on songs in a decidedly lighter vein than the characteristic ambiance of rebetiko songs. Perhaps most significantly of all, Chiotis, himself a virtuoso not only on the bouzouki but on guitar, violin and oud, was responsible for introducing and popularizing the modified 4-stringed bouzouki (tetrahordho) in 1956.^[6][25] Chiotis was already a seemingly fully-fledged virtuoso on the traditional 3-stringed instrument by his teens, but the guitar-based tuning of his new instrument, in combination with his playful delight in extreme virtuosity, led to new concepts of bouzouki playing which came to define the style used in laïki mousiki (laiko) and other forms of bouzouki music, which however could no longer really be called rebetiko in any sense.

A comparable development also took place on the vocal side. In 1952 a young singer named Stelios Kazantzidis recorded a couple of rebetika songs that were quite successful. Although he would continue in the same style for a few years it was quickly realized, by all parties involved, that his singing technique and expressive abilities were too good to be contained within the rebetiko idiom. Soon well-known composers of rebetika—like Kaldaras, Chiotis, Klouvatos—started to write songs tailored to Stelios powerful voice and this created a further shift in rebetika music. The new songs had a more complex melodic structure and were usually more dramatic in character. Kazantzidis went on to become a star of the emerging laiki music.

Kazantzidis, however, did not only contribute to the demise of classical rebetika (of the Piraeus style that is). Paradoxically, he was also one of the forerunners of its revival. In 1956 he started his cooperation with Vassilis Tsitsanis who, in addition to writing new songs for Kazantzidis, also gave him some of his old ones to reinterpret. Kazantzidis, thus, sung and popularized such rebetika classics as "Synnefiasmeni Kyriaki" (Clouded Sunday), "Bakse tsifliki" and "Ta Kavourakia". These songs, and many others, previously unknown to the wider public, suddenly became cherished and sought-after.

At about the same time many of the old time performers—both singers and bouzouki players—abandoned the musical scene of Greece. Some of them died prematurely (Haskil, Ninou), others emigrated to the US (Binis, Evgenikos, Tzouanakos, Kaplanis), while some quit music life for other work (Pagioumtzis, Genitsaris). This, of course, created a void which had to be filled with new blood. In the beginning the new recruits—like for example Dalia, Grey and Kazantzidis—stayed within the bounds of classical rebetica. Soon, however, their youthful enthusiasm and different experiences found expression in new stylistic venues which eventually changed the old idiom.

This combined situation contributed, during the 1950s, to the almost total eclipse of rebetiko by other popular styles. By the late 1950s, rebetiko had declined; it only survived in the form of archontorebetiko (αρχοντορεμπέτικο, 'posh rebetiko' or 'bourgeois rebetiko'), a refined style of rebetiko that was far more accepted by the upper class than the traditional form of the genre.

In fact, somewhat confusingly, from at least the 1950s, during which period rebetiko songs were not usually referred to as a separate musical category, but more specifically on the basis of lyrics, the term laïki mousiki (λαϊκή μουσική), or laïka, (λαϊκα) covered a broad range of Greek popular music, including songs with the bouzouki, and songs that today would without doubt be classified as rebetiko. The term in its turn derives from the word laos (λάος) which translates best as 'the people'.

The revival

The first phase of the rebetiko revival can perhaps be said to have begun around 1960. In that year the singer Grigoris Bithikotsis recorded a number of songs by Markos Vamvakaris, and Vamvakaris himself made his first recording since 1954. During the same period, writers such as Elias Petropoulos began researching and publishing their earliest attempts to write on rebetiko as a subject in itself.^[26] The bouzouki, unquestioned as the basic musical instrument of rebetiko music, now began to make inroads into other areas of Greek music, not least due to the virtuosity of Manolis Chiotis. From 1960 onwards prominent Greek composers such as Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hatzidakis employed bouzouki virtuosi such as Manolis Chiotis, Giorgos Zambetas, and Thanassis Polyhandriotis in their recordings.

The next phase of the rebetiko revival can be said to have started in the beginning of the 1970s, when LP reissues of 78 rpm recordings, both anthologies and records devoted to individual artists, began to appear in larger numbers. This phase of the revival was initially, and is still to a large extent, characterized by a desire to recapture the style of the original recordings, whereas the first phase tended to present old songs in the current musical idiom of Greek popular music, laïki mousiki. Many singers emerged and became popular during this period. It was during the 1970s that the first work which aimed at popularizing rebetiko outside the Greek language sphere appeared^{[GH 2]} and the first English-language academic work was completed.^[12]

During the 1970s a number of older artists made new recordings of the older repertoire, accompanied by bouzouki players of a younger generation. Giorgios Mouflouzelis, for example, recorded a number of LPs, though he had never recorded during his youth in the 78 rpm era. The most significant contribution in this respect was perhaps a series of LPs recorded by the singer Sotiria Bellou, who had had a fairly successful career from 1947 onwards, initially under the wing of Tsitsanis. These newer recordings were instrumental in bringing rebetiko to the ears of many who were unfamiliar with the recordings of the 78 rpm era, and are still available today as CDs.

An important aspect of the revival of the late 1960s and early 1970s was the element of protest, resistance and revolt against the military dictatorship of the junta years. This was perhaps because rebetiko lyrics, although seldom directly political, were easily construed as subversive by the nature of their subject matter and their association in popular memory with previous periods of conflict.

George Dalaras

Babis Tsertos

Rebetiko in its original form was revived during the Junta of 1967–1974, when the Regime of the Colonels banned it. After the end of the Junta, many revival groups (and solo artists) appeared. The most notable of them include Opisthodhromiki Kompania, Rembetiki Kompania, Babis Tsertos, Agathonas Iakovidis and others.

Giorgos Dalaras in 1975 decided to release his own renditions of rebetiko songs on the double LP 50 Chronia Rebetiko Tragoudi (50 Χρόνια Ρεμπέτικο Τραγούδι, 50 Years of Rebetiko Songs). The recording proved an immediate success, despite the toning down of the lyrics. However, as a result, a new movement was set to take place in Greek music, and the once forgotten rebetes were finding themselves performing, in some cases for the first time in 30 to 40 years. He followed up this work with an LP in 1980, Rebetika tis Katochis (Ρεμπέτικα της Κατοχής, Rebetiko (songs) of the occupation), which was a more gritty and meaty release, more faithful to the tone of the original rebetika as heard in the 1930s. However, again references to drugs were cut out, and only mentioned in passing. Unlike the previous double LP, this one contained some of the original musicians, Bayianteras and Genitsaris in particular making an appearance on the album.

Modern times

Today, rebetiko songs are still popular in Greece, both in contemporary interpretations which make no attempt to be other than contemporary in style, and in interpretations aspiring to emulate the old styles. The genre is a subject of growing international research, and its popularity outside Greece is now well-established.

Some of the musicians and singers of the genre include Babis Tsertos, Babis Goles and Agathonas Iakovidis.

In 2012, Vinicio Capossela released his music album Rebetiko Gymnastas.