Liner Notes by Jay Stebley, edited by David A. Jaffe There has never been a race on earth that has inspired more lore, fables, and dreams than the Gypsies. Dark-skinned nomads dressed in brilliant rainbow hues, travelling in rustic caravans have beckoned the romantic and adventurous at heart for centuries. Yet popular misconceptions and prejudices have dogged the wanderings of these ancient people, known variously as the Rom, gitanos, a cianyok, and zigeuner. Few people know that hundreds of thousands of them perished along with Jews and other minorities in the Nazi death camps. Fortune-tellers, thieves, horse-traders, beggars. Remnants of these archetypes can still be found in the Gypsies of today, many of whom can tell the fate and fortunes of anyone willing to part with some loose change, and many of whom do indeed have a shrewd eye for a good trade. But today's Gypsies are far more likely to make their livelihood as tinkers, knife-sharpeners, and jewelers, than to risk a life of crime among societies that still misunderstand and persecute their kind. Nevertheless, they still retain two essential aspects of their nature: their nomadic way of life and their remarkable musical gifts. Who are the Gypsies and where are they from? It is widely known that the Gypsies are the descendants of low caste Indian tribes, caled Asura, Ghasiya, and Luri. It is less known that the dialects and traditions of the original Gypsies still exist among the hundreds of creeds found on the Indian sub-continent. Among the Luri, it is in the Dom people where we find the source of the fabulous musical genius of the Gypsy race. As early as the sixth century, historians refer to the Dom as gandharva (musical). The word doma comes from the Sanskrit dom (to resound) and is ascribed to the people who lived by singing and making music. Trough the following ten centuries, a great dispersion spread the Gypsies across the continents, following the winds east from India, through some of their number behind to wander within the borders of Hungary, Russia, France, Romania, England, and Spain. Today, there are few countries in the Old and New World that don't boast a Gypsy clan; indeed, one of the largest enclaves of Kalderash Gypsies can be found in Richmond, California. To this day, it is still clear that assimilation is not the Gypsy way, and that they retain many of their centuries-old traditions. They remain true to their nomadic ways, to their blood, and to their beliefs: old, shamanistic, yet unmistakably Christian. They still tend to be profoundly distrustful of us, the gadjes, the non-Gypsies (gadjes could be translated as peasants). At the same time, they alter immeasurably the cultural landscape in each country they inhabit, as when they influenced the gitano of Spain, and the passion of the cante jondo (flamenco); the manouche of Perpignan in the south of France, with their rituals on horseback by the sea; and especially the Cigany of Hungary, from whom have sprung generations of great Gypsy violinists. In the musicians, we have the most enduring popular picture of the Gypsy, wonderfully documented in the film Latcho Drom: a magician who makes his instrument conjure spells, demons, and romantic fantasies around a blazing fire. Scenes like this can still be found today, substituting a cozy restaurant in place of the campfire. There are few of us who can resist the sweet and sentimental Gypsy airs, who are not aroused to shouts by the stupendous display of Gypsy virtuosity on a violin. Similarly, many composers and classically-trained violinists have fallen under the spell. A famous concert violinist at the turn of the century, after hearing the great Imre Magyari improvising on themes without a safety net, was heard to say, "I cannot play that!" (And he was right!) Gypsy violin is at once dark and brooding with the sorrow of displacement and prejudice, and carefree and soaring with the love of unfettered life. Countless composers have attempted to capture this magic and stamp it with their own musical signature. Dovrak and Haydn - even Stravinsky - have written alla Zingarese and, in many cases, produced masterpieces. As might be expected, some of the most challenging music comes from the violinist-composers: Sarasate, Ysaye, and Kreisler. Brahms and Tchaikovsky could not resist the Gypsy spirit in the finales of their violin concerti. It was composers Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly who first collected and studied Gypsy music and discovered the distinction and connection between it and rural folk music. In travelling though Hungary and the Balkans, they found that strains of melody sung by the peasants in each region could be traced back to pre-nomadic times, thereby pre-dating the arrival of the Gypsies. Much of what passed for folk music in the nineteenth century, including music heard by Liszt and Brahms, was music adapted and performed by Gypsies. Thanks to Bartok's and Kodaly's research, we now understand how the Gypsies acquired their own music, drawing from the local folk traditions, shaping and coloring them with a musical genius passed down through centuries of travel. To this day, the Gypsies play the role of itinerant musicians in villages and towns in Hungary, Romania, and the former Yugoslavia, and find themselves required to play not only the folk music and art songs of the locality, but also the popular hits of the day. And just as Gypsy music crept into the performance of folk music over a century ago, jazz and rock have recently begun to penetrate the performances of today's Gypsies.