Rebetiko the greek jazz Athens ● Greece
BELOU REBETES TSITSANIS URBAN VAMVAKARIS
Rebbetiko the Greek jazz music
The birth of rebetiko is connected with prison songs. The first ever reference to this type of songs was made in 19th c. In 1850 o French nobleman, named Apper, visited Greece in order to research the problems in the Ottoman prisons and he referred to the songs the prisoners used to sing. To the same type of songs also referred Papadiamadis, Dafnis and Karkavitsas (Greek writers) who visited Peloponnese in 1890, wrote down and published some of these songs. Rebetika are songs of the city and especially of the harbors, such as Smyrna. Istanbul, Syros , Thessaloniki, Piraeus . The first rebetika used to refer to outlaw actions and love relationships, but the social element in their themes was not vivid. Until 1938, on the one side, Markus Vamvakaris Piraeus style rebetiko, was dominant. On the other side, musicians began to compose the same kind of music in Smyrna. In 1937 Vasilis Tsitsanis and Manolis Chiotis did their first appearances. 1936 was the year when a rebetiko song "Varvara" was censored for the first time. In 1937 the dictatorship of Metaxas imposed
a strict censorship. This is why the songs meaning had to change. The references to hashish, shisha and opium dens, ceased.
During the 40's Sotiria Belou a significant figure of rebetiko made her debut. In 1950 two other important singers appeared, Stelios Kazantzidis and Grigoris Bithikotsis. Rebetiko was rising day after day, more and more people started listening to it. This had as an outcome, the expansion of its themes and the change of the venues where someone could listen to this music. Most researchers place the "death" of rebetiko in the middle of 1950, even though still today many people perform, dance and sing to this kind of music. So how is it possible for a music genre to be dead since it is still played and sang?