Les Yeux Noirs : Singing songs of the gypsies

Lauranne Callet, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 04/20/2012 9:32 AM

“Mon fils je vais te chanter une petite chanson,” (My son, I will sing for you a little song) a female voice with a pronounced accent whispered in the speakers, welcoming the audience to the Les Yeux Noirs performance on Wednesday at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta.

No explanation was given about the person behind this voice, but one could bet it was the grandmother of the Slabiak brothers who were “introduced” later in the show.

Les Yeux Noirs’ music particularly fits with this introductory sentence. The French gypsy jazz band — whose style is hard to define in a few words — offered Jakarta an invitation to travel with them along with their tunes made up of family influences, Eastern European flavors and the pleasure of sharing.

The two Slabiak brothers, accompanied by a talented band, have been keeping the musical tradition of their family alive for 20 years already. Their uncles, famous jazz musicians, played with the greats of their time. But to have famous relatives in the music sphere didn’t help them that much as those uncles refused to give them advice in order not to encourage them to have a musical career.

But that didn’t stop the two from becoming experimental musicians and launching Les Yeux Noirs, which means dark eyes, referring to a gypsy song popularized by Django Reinhardt.

The audience was certainly not thinking about the past during the performance that carried along a great majority of the people seated at the concert hall. The duet of violins (Erik and Olivier Slabiak) and the accordion (Dario Ikovik) blended their gypsy jazz tones with strong rock hints from the electric guitar (Frank Anastasio), the bass (Julien Herné) and the drums (Rémi Sanna) for a performance that lasted almost two hours.

Les Yeux Noirs played cover songs as well as original compositions in which they mix musical styles to embrace a large diversity of gypsy cultures from Eastern Europe and Yiddish (Jewish from Eastern Europe) influences.

“The next song is a love song. An impossible love because it’s better. When it happens, you feel it for real,” Eric explained on stage before dashing into the song. The same liveliness was present in their performance of a melancholic Balkan song from Dona, a dynamic musical tale from Belarus. “Lakht der vint in korn/ Lakht er op a tog a gantsn/Un a halbe nacht/Dona, dona, dona, dona…” (The wind is laughing in the wheat/He is laughing all day long/And half of the night/Dona, dona, dona...), the Slabiak brothers sang turning the rough Yiddish language into a powerful melody.

“We listened to David Bowie and a lot of rock ’n’ roll stars when we were younger. It definitely influenced our work,” said Olivier. Eric certainly agreed with his brother’s statement while he was striding along the stage jumping and playing violin to accompany the drums on a furious rhythm. And the audience — mostly French nationals and about a third locals — joyfully followed along, clapping to encourage the musicians.

Those songs had already traveled around Singapore and Indonesia during Les Yeux Noirs’ Asian tour, and the band never gave up the family spirit of their music. On stage, Eric explained in French that they found a tape of their grandmother singing a song they love and so they had the idea to sample her voice to bring her along with them in their performances. Beside him, Eric was doing the English translation and he maliciously shortened it. “We digitalized our grandmother,” he said to the laughing audience before setting off the soft and energetic voice of their forebear.

The performance closed with an incredible violin challenge between the two brothers, who ended up playing on the same instrument. The audience could clearly see that Eric’s speedy movement while dancing lead him to break numerous strings of his violin. But he didn’t pay that any attention.

Les Yeux Noirs has performed at the most prestigious concert venues in France, but when they were asked about their interest in playing abroad, Olivier do not hesitate with his answer. “Cultural exchange and communication are essentials for music to be able to evolve.”

He added that the message in their music was to emphasize that it is possible to live together and to mix cultures.

After the performance, journalists congratulated the band on their terrific performance, which “sounded like Arabic music”. Oliver responded that he was happy that their “music brings people to share emotions even if they don’t come from the same cultural background.”

“Music is a real Esperanto, a universal language,” he added.