Yesterday I found myself reflecting on some words from day 0
‘the person who arrives is not the one who left’.
This trip has been very intense for me. Meeting so many people, visiting so many places in such a short span. Some ‘moments’ have had a profound effect on me. Day 4, as I encountered the intense Shamanistic music of Raushan and her kobuz. Day 7, hearing Munadjat moved me to tears. Day 11, the quiet reflection of Hoja Ismail al Bukhari?s Tomb. Day 12, the intimacy and humour of a family lunch with ‘the last of his kind’, Ari Babakhanov. Day 13, at last the satellite works and I share my discoveries and invite your questions. Day 16, I meet the wild man of Baysun, Shoberdy Bakshy who dares to dance to a different drum. Yesterday the Sufi Shayk Kushkarov astounded me with his strength of spirit, generosity and wit. The internet site though is the tip of an iceberg.
After tracking the Baysun Ensemble several hundred kilometres across Uzbekistan, we finally caught up with them in Tashkent. They assembled in Friendship Square at 3.00 in the afternoon heat. Despite the conditions we managed to catch a brief example of their unique brand of folk music. The Ensemble is large, 45 people including musicians and dancers. We only saw 30 of them today, but I still had the impression of a village collectively telling a story. Baysun itself is renowned for its music [see Day 16] and the
Ensemble have a considerable reputation in Uzbekistan. Established for ten years they have travelled widely, including UK, Turkey, Bulgaria and USA. Their music might be described as folk revival, aiming for a reconstruction of traditional music about everyday life. It is a long way from the Russian inspired ‘folkloric’ groups, and retains something of the simplicity and directness of authentic folk music. Stories and poems are sung and semi-staged. The repertoire is adapted for the concert hall and is very well rehearsed. Its naturalness conceals years of painstaking reconstruction, mostly from oral sources. They now adapt traditional melodies to modern texts.
I sat down with their manager, Abdunabi Ravshanov and their musical director and flute player, Habib Umarov. After some discussion about the Group’s history and current activities, I asked about the similarities between their music and the music of the Balkans, particularly Bulgaria. This similarity had struck me particularly strongly this afternoon. Habib said that Uzbeks and Bulgars had mixed with Turkic people. I took out my flute and played a Turkish melody. Habib’s face flashed a smile of recognition. Within seconds he was playing along and I was trying to imitate some of his ornamentation and variations. It seems this tune is from Istanbul. We each knew slightly different versions but it was undoubtedly the same melody. It was a strange but hard-warming feeling to be sitting in a Tashkent hotel with a Baysun flute player playing a melody from Istanbul.
It crossed my mind that because musicians seem to pick up tunes wherever they hear them, the music itself becomes nomadic – it travels. This has always been the case. Habib played ‘What do we do with the drunken sailor?’ to which he knew a strange variation on the words presumably picked up on a tour of the UK. On day 2 Abylai played us an Italian tune, on day 18 the chang player in Samarkand entertained us with Mozart. With my Russian limited to one or two words this is by far the best way to get acquainted.
The journey continues, we turn another corner. The Shaman eludes us, and we still only glimpse real yurts on distant hill sides. 19 more days, tomorrow the Ferghana valley and then onward to Krygyzstan.