Lache Cercel and Roma Swing Ensemble come to White Rock

Romanian-born violinist Lache Cercel will be performing with his Roma Swing Ensemble next month.

Contributed photo

Some call it Gypsy Jazz – Lache Cercel calls it Roma Swing.

The virtuoso Romanian-born violinist has a soulful tone that speaks of generations of music tradition in his own family – and a staggering technique refined through years of classical music studies and performance.

In format, his music acknowledges both his roots and the jazz style of Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt that came to worldwide fame in the 1930s.

But don't expect the upcoming performance by Cercel and his Roma Swing Ensemble, presented by Geoff Giffin and Wendy Bollard's Peninsula Productions (Feb. 10, 8 p.m., First United Church, 15385 Semiahmoo Ave.), to be simply a rehash of what was done in the past.

What the Vancouver-based Cercel creates with such Canadian collaborators as well-known guitarist Don Ogilvie and bassist Sam Schoichet may pay tribute to familiar standards, but it's just as likely to feature originals drawing on such diverse influences as East Indian, Middle Eastern and Chinese music, always with an underpinning of advanced jazz chord progressions.

The result, said Cercel, is a different kind of world music that is thoroughly Canadian in its multicultural blend, achieving its own stylistic authenticity.

"It's about musicians from around the world, from different backgrounds… who find a middle way to meet together and build together, through performance, a new genre of music," he said.

"If I was going to play the same music I did in Romania, I would have stayed there. It's like latin Jazz – it happens here, but it's not the same latin Jazz you would find in Cuba."

Roma Swing's style, showcased in the group's first album, Musika Konkordo, has been described by reviewers as a mix of "roots, ethnic and Balkan music, with fancy jazz chords and advanced jazz bass lines."

"I think that's an accurate description," Cercel said.

And while improvisation is central to the music, that doesn't mean there's anything haphazard about the way it is conceived.

Cercel, who before settling in Canada in 1998 was one of Romania's most highly regarded classical musicians (trained at the Academy of Arts in Bucharest, he became a nationally-honoured soloist with the Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra), doesn't neglect academic and technical considerations in his ensemble, which he describes as "a small laboratory of music".

A new piece for the ensemble, whether an original or a cover of a familiar tune, is thoroughly worked out by Olgivie and himself to bring out the best tonal colours.

"It's why Mozart wrote his Clarinet Concerto in Bb, or Bach wrote his Two Violin concerto in D, or why Albinoni's Adagio is in G – it's to choose the best key for the instrument, where the instrument has the best response.

"After we find the right key, it's finding the right inversion of the chords in balance with the melody line."

Harmonization is kept clean, to avoid  "very thick" orchestration Cercel said, with an emphasis on blending the characteristics of musically sympathetic instruments such as bass, guitar, violin and accordion "to have an even, equal sound."

While blues and roots music of the past was not very harmonically advanced, he said, he has a preference for "astral chords" employing intervals of 9ths, 11ths and 13ths – "this way I can say its a new genre of music," he said.

Cercel is wary of using the term 'fusion' to describe his music – it has been confused by overuse and association with other forms, such as 'rock fusion,' he said.

Similarly, making generalizations about Roma music is like lumping all genres of country music together, he said.

What some think of as Roma music is actually the romanticized creation of such classical composers as Liszt and Brahms, or Monti's famous Czardas – which Cercel characterizes as the "classical café concert style" popularized in the 19th century – an equivalent of Western dinner or salon music that did not actually represent the music authentic Roma musicians were making at the time.

And while many call the style popularized by Grappelli and Reinhardt "gypsy jazz," Cercel said that – to Roma musicians – it's simply jazz.

But Cercel isn't interested in factionalization. Ultimately, underlying everything he does in music, he said, is a message of international peace and co-existence.

"In the end, we are all one nation – if you go back in history," he said. "And music was the only way to communicate."

Tickets and information are available from Tapestry Music, at tickets.surrey.ca or by calling 604-501-5566.