Nicolae Neacsu is dead...
Well, it is a strange thing when you feel sad for the death of someone you don’t know, and I’ve scathingly attacked others before for the mass-mourning phenomena surrounding such utterly unworthy subjects as the Queen Mother, but the old violinist of the band Taraf de Haïdouks, Nicolae Neacsu has died at the age of 78. I’d met him 3 times (so I knew him a little bit at least!), and although he speaks no English, everyone always fell in love with him. I remember him most because after concerts, he would wander around trying to steal cigarettes off everyone!!! He was somewhat more reserved than the other members of Taraf, maybe he was just
older. I don’t think he spoke too much French either, which is what many of
Taraf know, so he always communicated using universal sign language.
When I first saw Taraf they were playing with the Kronos Quartet, and I remember Nicolae walking onto the stage and starting singing into the Royal Festival Hall without a microphone!. He tried to fill the huge space with lung power!!!
He was most well know for his unusual method of violin playing, where he ties a string to one of the violin strings which hangs down, and then plays by scratching this string with his finger nail while playing. The result is a melodic creaking!!! It was really wonderful when the Kronos quartet came on stage later and he and they all played using this method; truly magical. His song using this technique about the fall of Ceaucescu always gives me chicken skin!!!
The next time I saw them was at Ronnie Scotts (a famous London Jazz club), and it was there where I started to truly understand the music. No one was dancing at all, and only me and a small hard-core group at the back were doing what one should with this
music - go wild… A pretentious jazz club is definately NOT the place to play wild gypsy music. I spent quite some time trying to communicate with Nicolae, and in the end we gave each other a hug, it was the only way I could communicate my love of this music, and the personalities of the musicians. Taraf have no pretentions, they often busk on the street before concerts (not for money, but for love of music), and they just want people to enjoy their music. They almost always continue playing in the bar or on the street after their concerts.
I remember one concert in Hammersmith, it finished at 10pm, and they then continued in the bar until 1am!!! We then had to leave, and as we were driving home, we stopped at a pedestrian crossing only to see a group of about 30 people dancing wildly acoss the road, Taraf in the middle and wandering down a sleepy suburban street. They are crazy! And Taraf will miss the unique personality of their veteran fiddler.
So, Nicolae - may you fiddle on wherever you’ve gone, and tonight i’ll get drunk on vodka, and dance till I collapse. It is the way I think that I could best honour you…
Found an obituary of Nicolae in the Guardian. For some more pictures of him, see here.
Yeah, they are real characters. I saw them when they played in the US, they were so cool…
Posted by John at September 10, 2002 11:52 AM