Los Angeles Times, CA
Calendar Live
Aug 9 2008
The Armenian Navy Band sets sail for America
The Armenian Navy Band may have a jokey name, but its music is
seriously alluring.
By Agustin Gurza, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
When music promoter Debbie Ohanian calls from her home in Miami Beach
to tip me to some great new band, I always listen. In the past decade,
she was one of the pioneers in bringing cutting-edge Cuban bands to
the U.S., sometimes at personal risk, as when she staged the first
concert in Miami for Los Van Van, despite violent protests.
With the Cuban scene fading, I hadn’t heard from Ohanian in a while —
until she called to rave about something that was totally foreign to
me. She hadn’t been so excited about music since those Cuban bands had
rocked her world.
She was talking about the Armenian Navy Band, a 12-piece folk-fusion
ensemble she had heard live for the first time in 2006 during a visit
to her family’s ancient homeland, a country with its own language and
alphabet and a culture that predates the birth of Christ. "It was one
of those life-changing moments," says Ohanian of the concert she
attended in Yerevan. "I thought to myself, ‘I feel sorry for anybody
who’s not sitting here tonight.’ "
L.A. audiences won’t have to travel 7,000 miles to share in Ohanian’s
epiphany. Next week, the Armenian Navy Band makes its U.S. debut at
Disney Hall in a benefit concert sponsored by Artists for Kids, a
Glendale-based nonprofit advancing the arts among youth. The band is
relatively unknown on these shores, though it’s been around for a
decade and has accumulated accolades throughout Europe.
It’s led by songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Arto Tunçboyaciyan,
who was born in Turkey but who has lived in this country for more than
a quarter-century. Arto, as he is known, dubs his sound "avant-garde
folk," a blend of traditional Armenian styles and modern elements,
including touches of jazz improvisation.
The music has that plaintive quality you also hear in flamenco or the
blues that comes from people surviving centuries of repression,
rejection and exile. Armenians carry in their collective DNA the
memory of what they consider a genocide by the Turks in the early 20th
century.
Arto’s voice sounds warbly, wounded and nasally. Yet it carries such
stunning power and spirituality it seems to rise right from the slopes
of Mt. Ararat, the dramatic snow-covered peak where Noah’s Ark is
believed to have come to rest and which overlooks Armenia with a
mystical presence.
The music features beautiful, alluring melodies as well as entrancing
percussion, thrilling brass and gentle strings. Come to think of it,
the sound has all the elements of Afro-Cuban music, though its
instrumentation is unique, including the traditional duduk, zurna and
kamancha. Anahit Artushyan, the only woman in the band, plays the
kanun, an ancient Middle Eastern string instrument. American listeners
may hear strains of Russian or Middle Eastern music in this Armenian
mix, not unexpected for a country that borders Turkey, Iran and
Georgia.
The band’s name is satirical, since Armenia is land-locked. Arto is
fond of explaining the moniker metaphorically. "Armenia has no seas,"
he says in heavily accented English, "so how are you going to move a
boat without water? If you are honest and respectful in your ideology,
you can move because, when people receive us in their heart, they are
becoming our sea."
Arto has lived mostly in New York and New Jersey, where he keeps a
home with his wife, Delia, who is half Colombian, half Greek, and
travels frequently to Armenia. I met him at his second-floor apartment
in Burbank, where he’s staying while planning a permanent move to Los
Angeles. He was preceded here by his grown children — Valantin, a USC
communication student, and Seto, an aspiring rapper who has recorded
with his father.
As we approach his modest building, Ohanian (here for the show) looks
for other Armenian names — characterized by "yan" and "ian" endings
— on the directory. She spots one, and mentions it later to Arto
during a discussion of the Armenian diaspora, which led to large exile
communities in Argentina, Venezuela and California, especially
Glendale. But any Armenian who expects to hear uncritical cultural
cheers in Arto’s music would be disappointed. In one CD, "How Much Is
Yours?" from 2005, he raises pointed questions meant to challenge what
he perceives as the errors of his people’s ways.
In person, his critiques are less delicate. He criticizes fellow
Armenians for materialism and corruption. He labels as wannabes the
Armenian teenagers who speed around in souped-up black BMWs in a
reckless drive to quickly attain and flaunt the American dream. But
perhaps most pointedly, he slams his countrymen for exploiting the
public’s sympathy for the genocide, saying mockingly, "If I cry a
little bit more, maybe they give me more money."
He has some advice for the young Armenians and Latinos who have at
times had violent confrontations considered ethnically
motivated. "It’s really sad because in reality they both are coming
from the same type of life," he says. "Their anger is because somebody
else overpowers them. Instead of fighting with each other, they should
come together and create positive art."
Arto says he doesn’t feel close to the local Armenian community. In
fact, he has invented his own country, "Artostan," the title of a solo
CD from 2005, which reflects the idea that he marches to his own
drummer.
"I am a mirror everywhere, and some people don’t like to see
themselves," he says with a knowing smile.
Of course, the music is as much celebratory as satirical. There’s the
sheer joy in melody and rhythm, highlighted by his show-stopping
performance with just a Coke bottle and a tambourine. But he also
writes songs extolling respect for nature, the joy of cooking with
family and the need to respect all the world’s cultures.
With a stocky build and a baseball cap covering his bald head, Arto
doesn’t have the look of a star. But his hands have the mark of a real
musician. His thick, knobby fingers show the ravage of constant
percussion practice, which brought complaints from downstairs
neighbors. Arto now beats on a slab of granite he set up on a
chair. The pain of smacking stone with his bare hands is the price he
pays to preserve the peace, love and respect he promotes as his core
values.
"Look, I left my body to represent everybody," he says. "Meaning, I am
not living life as an Armenian. I am living life as a human being,
like everybody else."
et-culture9-2008aug09,0,5057642.story
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
