Cafe Music

Description:

The term "cafe music" is not very popular and familiar among Romanians. In each country "cafe music" is differently interpreted. We call cafe music, that slow music, i.e that which is played slowly. Romanian singers who were close to this style are:

• Jean Moscopol (pre-war singer reminiscent of Carlos Gardel February 26, 1903 - 1980) was a Romanian singer of the interwar period. From 1921-22, he was a clerk at the M. Embiricos et Co Maritime Agency. He then spent two years at the P. Macri and Son Agency in Brăila, and from 1925 to 1929 worked at the Chrissoveloni Bank in Bucharest. While an aeronautics student, someone advised him to put his musical talent "in use" and make some recordings. At that moment, music became his profession. He made his performing debut in 1929 at the Zissu bar on Şerban Vodă Street, Bucharest. He would spontaneously create epigrams for the clients and banter with them. He also published a book of epigrams, 101 răutăţi ("101 Naughty Sayings"). At that time he also made his first gramophone recordings and firstly appeared on radio. He took music lessons in 1930, passed an examination and was confirmed as a professional artist. H. Nicolaide hired him at the Alhambra Revue Theatre, where he sang in the operettas such as Alhambritta, Lăsaţi-mă să cânt and Contesa Maritza. In 1931 he toured Romania with Ion Manolescu, an actor at the National Theatre in Bucharest. That year he signed an exclusive contract with the London-based RCA Records. By 1936, his repertoire included some 300 songs of various genres, both Romanian and foreign; he helped popularize the tango in his native land. In 1932 he went to Berlin, where he recorded discs with famous orchestras such as Honigsberg or James Kok, and took bel canto lessons with Professor Korst.
• Gică Petrescu (2 April 1915 - 18 June 2006) was a prolific Romanian folk and pop music composer and performer. He made his debut at age 18 by joining a student band, having just graduated from the "Gheorghe Şincai" high school in Bucharest. His official debut was made by performing for radio audiences in 1937. Between 1937-1939 he carried on singing with the "Radu Ghindă" and "Dinu Şerbănescu" orchestras at the Sinaia Casino. He holds a record for the number of composed and performed songs (over 1,500), in an amazingly varied discography, many of which became national hits which were covered again and again by other Romanian artists. Some of those hits are:
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    • Căsuţa noastră
    • Bucuresti, măi Bucureşti
    • Lalele, allele
    • Uite-aşa aş vrea să mor

On 5th May 2003, the ex-president of Romania, Ion Iliescu, awarded Gică Petrescu the "Star of Romania" (Knight's Order) as an acknowledgment for his carrier and celebration of  his 88th anniversary.

On 18 June 2006, around 18:00 GMT +2, he was due to receive the national award "Premiile muzicale Radio România Actualităţi". The award was cancelled, as he had died that very morning. He was 91 years old.

• Cristian Vasile (May 8, 1908 - 1985) was a Romanian, well-known tango-romance (Romanta) singer between 1928 and 1949, famous for songs like "Zaraza", "Aprinde o ţigară", "Ce să-ţi mai scriu", "Pentru tine am făcut nebunii", "Nunuţo". Cristian Vasile was to be remembered as "the last troubadour". Although he was supposedly at odds with Zavaidoc, another famous Romanian singer of the era, there is no proof that such a rivalry existed beyond pink novels and rumours. His greatest success, the song "Zaraza", referring to a Gypsy woman he was in love with at that time, was in fact a plagiarized version of a Uruguayan tango written in 1929 by Benjamín Tagle Lara.