Bodo Band in Seattle 2003
How I Met Bodó Band
Note: The following is an exerpt from a cultural exploration written prior to our tour…
The story starts with an International Folk Dance gathering on March 23, 2003 and continues with highlights from several subsequent meetings in March and April.
A viola player and international student from Hungary, Katalin Tamás, contacted me via my web site at the beginning of March regarding a “Musicians Wanted” classified ad that I had completely forgotten about. She filled out the questionnaire on my site and we got in touch via email. I checked out her web site (www.bodoband.org), but I didn’t actually meet her for several weeks due to my spring sinus attacks and scheduling conflicts. The plan, at that point, was to meet Katalin to see if she wanted to join some of my projects. It wasn’t long before the tables were turned, and I was brought into a whole new world.
The people I met are from Bodó, near Nyiregyhaza, Eastern Hungary. Hungary is located east of Austria, south of Slovakia and west of Ukraine and Romania. The famous Danube River flows through the capital of Budapest, bisecting the country into almost two equal halves. Bodó’s complete name is Bodóhegy, in which “hegy” means mountain. However, Hungary is almost completely flat. This “mountain” comes in at a whopping 25 meters. Please note that the term “gypsy” as used below is not meant as a pejorative term. The Hungarians I spoke with use the term “gypsy” in a more general sense, and not as a derogatory reference.
Katalin (27) graduated from the University of Miskolc, Hungary in 1998. She has performed throughout Hungary, and in Russia, Vienna, Austria and Jerusalem. At the moment, she is studying Business at BU where she is organizing the band of the Susquehanna International Folk Dancers. She is on the board of trustees of the first folk radio station of Europe. Katalin went to New Orleans for Spring Break, and when she returned she invited me to attend a local Sunday night International Dance at the Milk Parlor Ballroom (on Route 42 between Bloomsburg and Millville, PA). I agreed to attend, so on March 23rd, my wife Audra and I arrived for the 6:00 PM gathering.
What happened next was like getting to the pop-up page in an otherwise flat book. I parked near the ballroom, and Anne Wilson greeted us She was one of the dancers, and our hostess for the evening. Anne explained that the dancers practice in the barn while the musicians practice in the house. Her husband, Oliver Larmi (they call him Oli) is a professor at BU. He was away the first night I was there. Anne guided us across the street to their beautiful rustic, Tolkien-esk farmhouse with large open rooms and wood burning stoves. As we entered the porch, we were introduced to Katalin.
The other musicians at the house included Mark, a versatile banjo/guitar player, and Stained Grass Window string bass player Mary Hermann. Also present was the rest of The Bodó Band: violinist Béla Marssó, and double bassist Janika. After introductions, we went around the room sharing a mix of bluegrass, blues, folk and traditional music. I dabbled with some guitar accompaniment on a few tunes, but it wasn’t long before I decided to just sit and listen to take it all in. As soon as The Bodó Band kicked in, with their Hungarian, Romanian and Jewish folk songs, I knew this would be a night I would never forget. The music, and the people playing it, was like what I had been reading about in world music magazines like the UK’s Songlines, and listening to on CDs. But nothing beats a live band. I couldn’t believe I was there. Energy, passion, and the volume… this group could play!
Béla is probably in his mid-50s and has been playing Hungarian folk music in Europe since 1972. As Katalin says, “Béla has a magnetic power – young people around him start studying an instrument and join the group of cheerful musicians.” His hobby is gliding, and he used to be a member in the Gliding Club of Nyíregyháza, where he met Katalin and inspired her to pick up three-string viola. I don’t know much about Janika, their bass player. His English wasn’t as good as the others, so he was very quiet.
At 8:00, the band finished warming up, and we crossed the dark country road to the barn with our instruments. A group of about ten people were getting ready for our arrival. The dancers (male and female) were from various backgrounds, including some other international students (I later learned) from Poland and Russia, and American BU students and adults. The band set up in the corner, and Béla gave me a chord book to follow along. The band played a number of bourees, waltzes and some gypsy dance tunes. The progressions weren’t hard, but the pace and improvisational nature of some of the changes was hard to follow at times. On my side was the fact that the acoustic guitar was almost completely drowned out by the other instruments and dance steps.
The band played while Anne led some dances. The dances varied from line to circle, usually involving dancing partners. Some dances changed speed with the tempo of the music. After about an hour of playing and dancing, everyone retired back to the house for snacks and drinks (actually, there was a good bit of wine and beer flowing even before that). At the house we did some more playing, and talked. As the night drew to a close just after 10:00, Audra came down with the start of a migraine, so we decided to go.
As Katalin and Béla walked us to the car, they asked if I knew any double bass players in the area. Janika was leaving for Florida soon, leaving them without a bass player for their next tour. One person from BU came to mind, but he is often difficult to reach. I mentioned my background as a bassist, cautioning them that I am less accomplished on string bass than electric bass or guitar. That’s when they told me about their two-week West Coast tour in May, and asked me to consider the idea of going with them.
Of course, at that hour, and considering Audra needed to get home, I didn’t know what to tell them. It was almost a year since I had touched a string bass (let alone the 3-string gut version they used). In Spring 02 I rejoined the Bloomsburg University Community Orchestra just for a one-semester challenge, and that was after over 4 years away from the instrument. Before then I wasn’t that great to begin with, always having to bow out on the more complex sheet music. For the most part, I admittedly was there to fill in the gaps on the easy stuff so the more accomplished players could rest in between difficult passages. It was somewhat more refined than air bass, but not much. I asked Béla and Katalin to let me think about it, and suggested that they contact me later in the week.
There were financial and logistical concerns to think about, not to mention the creative workload of learning a new repertoire in a few weeks. The next day was spent bouncing the idea around, considering the implications of taking two weeks off (without pay) to play with a band I hardly knew. I decided to concentrate on the creative barrier, if indeed one existed. I decided it was better to find out if I could actually play first, and see the band’s reaction, then address the rest of my concerns.
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