Slavs of New York

With a bubanj drum strapped to his slight frame, Matt Moran led the crowd in a chorus of “opa cupa!” in the small, red-tinted back room of Barbès.  The nine-piece brass band filled the Park Slope club with the booming sound of Balkan music while the crowd gripped pints of beer tight to their bodies. Shoulder-to-shoulder, they swayed their hips as much as they could. Moran and his band, Slavic Soul Party, continued on, used to this closeness—after all, it has happened almost every Tuesday night for the past four years.

Though the band itself is almost 10 years old, the gig at Barbès began when Moran pitched the idea of a weekly show to the club’s owners.

At that time, Barbès didn’t plan on being a music venue, said owner Vincent Douglas, but now the bar hosts an eclectic mix of world music every night of the week.

“People are starting to look elsewhere from standard rock,” said Douglas. “In the U.S. it’s still fairly new.  But in Europe, it has been there for a while.”

Beyond seeking respite from mainstream songs, one reason Balkan-style music has gained such a following is that it makes you want to dance.

“It’s a really exuberant feeling,” said musician Peter Hess, who joined Slavic Soul Party on sax for one of their shows.  “It’s raw and sophisticated and danceable.” 

He should know: his own band, Balkan Beat Box, has a basis of Balkan music as well. But where Slavic Soul Party is a brass band, Balkan Beat Box leans toward fusing their songs with a hip-hop, rock and pop feel. While both bands cite modern music as an influence—Missy Elliot appears listed on both bands’ Myspace pages—they also derive sounds from Balkan greats such as Saban Bajramovic, Goran Bergovic and Boban Markovic.

The most common sound they share is the horns. Often the trumpets and tubas play simultaneously in quick, repeating notes and then the deep, cascading sax or clarinet. Next the accordion comes in, a wailing, energetic instrument that helps distinguish Balkan brass from American jazz. Underneath these instruments comes the dull thud of a drum, which keeps a steady beat and helps hold everything together.

Of course this isn’t the first kind of music to find a home in a country far from its origin. Although blues music was originally branded as indecent in America, English bands like The Rolling Stones and The Beatles helped transform American blues into mainstream pop music. In this way, American bands have grabbed hold of gypsy music and made it their own. From Denver, Co., the band DeVotchka has gained popularity after years of Eastern European- and Mexican- influenced sounds by their four-member, multi-instrumental band.

Brooklyn-based Beirut, led by Zach Condon, features strong gypsy rhythms on their first record, “Gulag Orkestar,” which was inspired by Balkan brass music he heard being played by a neighbor while he lived in Amsterdam.

While Slavic Soul Party is a brass band, almost any music nowadays that incorporates an accordion, violin, trumpet, tuba and clarinet gets pushed into a gypsy genre. So however it’s played, from Gogol Bordello’s punk to Django Reinhardt’s jazz, people flock to listen— and dance. Even the waitress at Barbès danced her way through the crowd as she picked up empty wine glasses and brought libations to the band.

Most nights the crowd at Barbès is a fairly even mix of regulars and newcomers, but the following Slavic Soul Party has maintained didn’t begin (and won’t end) at Barbès. The band travels constantly in the States and tours Europe once a year, including trips to the Balkans to learn more about the music they play. 

“Barbès is our workshop, where we can go and take risks and try new things,” said Moran.

The band has performed at major festivals across the country, from opening up for the Kronos Quartet, playing a steelworker dive bar in Pittsburgh and rocking Pasha’s Palace in Istanbul.

“It’s great to see [the music] getting reception all over the world,” Moran said. The gypsy brass band has historically been for weddings and funerals, but now, he added, “It’s become very clear that brass band music has been making a rise in terms of national pride. Gypsy bands have been afforded more respect.”

Slavic Soul Party at Barbès, 376 9th St. (at 6th Ave.), Brooklyn, 718-965-9177; 9, $10.