Under the influences

Julia Bard talked to Daniel Jonas, founder of the Sephardi band, Los Desterrados about their music, their audiences and their new CD

Los Desterrados means 'the exiles', and the music played by this talented band reflects the diverse experiences of the generations of Sephardic Jews who established communities from Turkey to the Netherlands after the explusion from Spain in 1492. Their latest CD, Miradores, opens with Mi suegra, la negra (My mother-in-law, the evil one), a traditional song from Bulgaria. Direct, rhythmic and laden with feeling, it typifies - if anything can - the strand of Sephardic songs which women sang at home, describing their work, their families, their dreams and their nightmares.

There are secular songs in Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino), and religious songs in Hebrew. Although they are drawn from the historic and rich Sephardic cultural tradition - or more accurately, traditions - these performances are completely accessible to modern audiences. 'I'm not interested in engaging in dialogue about what's authentic and what's not, and we're not really educators. We do end up educating people, but that's by accident,' says Daniel Jonas, who plays guitar and oud. 'This is good music which most people don't know about, and although Ladino is on the UNESCO list of endangered languages, we're not running a museum.'

All the members of Los Desterrados are Londoners and all are Jewish, but they come from different parts of the community. 'I think we cover everything now from completely secular to meshuggene frum - which is probably me!' says Jonas. 'We cover the complete spectrum of political views - but it's like any group of Jewish people, it's not so much a group as an argument.' Jonas describes himself as 'the only "Sephardi Sephardi" in the group'.

They are fine musicians who bring a range of influences to the band - classical, folk, jazz, rock, choral and, above all, flamenco - but they were not familiar with Sephardi music before they came together. Jonas says he grew up with 'stealth Sephardi music'. The influence of the Spanish tradition on Israeli music meant that he was familiar with the scales, and he looked for people who were interested and good enough to develop this genre.

When he was exploring the repertoire in the early days of the band - listening to CDs, researching the language - he was simultaneously studying flamenco. 'There's an old chestnut that flamenco was influenced by Jewish and Arabic music. Whether it is or not, I don't know, but we were going this way as the Gypsies were going that way,' says Jonas, 'so there was bound to be some sort of encounter.'

The flamenco Gypsy sound is just one dimension of this marvellously varied music which is, at its heart, a synthesis. 'Music is osmotic,' says Jonas, 'that membrane is very porous and the musical influences filter in, and in the same way we find influences filtering in from where we're coming from, which is why the band has quite a strong rock 'n' roll, rhythm-driven sound.'

The new CD reflects these fusions of language, rhythm, harmony and melody. Si veriyash a la rana (If you see the frog) is a surreal Bulgarian song in which a frog fries chips, a rat peels walnuts and a camel makes filo pastry, but the chorus, sung in Turkish, simply means 'I love you very much'!

Love is a recurring theme. In the pleading Buenas noches, Hanum Dudu (Good evening Miss Dudu), adapted from a Greek folk tune, a young man prays for Miss Dudu to take him upstairs to the room behind the yellow curtain. Ni Pudra yevo ni kolor (I wear no powder or rouge), a flamenco-influenced duet, beautifully sung by bassist Jean-Marc Barsam and lead vocalist Hayley Blitz, vividly expresses the protagonists' passion. In the lyrical Por la tu puerta yo pasi (I passed by your door) a young man sings of his fantasies about the woman inside - the verses are in Judaeo-Spanish and the chorus is in Turkish.

'The Jewish community is our core audience,' says Daniel Jonas, 'and community organisations are useful for us to do our "test marketing".' The diverse musical influences, though, mean that the music attracts a much wider audience. When Los Desterrados performed recently at The Green Note in London's Camden Town, the venue was packed with a huge variety of people, a large proportion of whom were not Jewish. None of them seemed to have any problem understanding and engaging with the music, as they clapped along with the complex rhythms and joined in with the choruses. 'We did a great gig in a synagogue in Belfast,' says Jonas. 'We played to 350 people - there was someone at the back who looked like Ian Paisley, there were members of the Muslims of Northern Ireland Association, the Turkish Association, as well as the Jewish community - and the Mayor of Belfast!'

It's not easy to trace the history of Sephardic music. 'We think that most of the material we play is 18th or 19th century,' says Jonas. 'As this is an oral tradition, it's hard to know, but generally the liturgical stuff is older.' The songs deal with timeless subjects that are relevant to both the past and the present - love, marriage, motherhood, adultery, abandonment, friendship, laughter, bereavement and prayer. But that universality is expressed in a way which, says, Jonas, 'gives an image of a culturally diverse Jewish community.' The liturgical songs tend to be more cerebral but the secular music is, he says, people's music: 'a bit rough, tough, down and dirty'.

Los Desterrados' new CD, Miradores, features:
Jean-Marc Barsam (bass, saz, guitar, vocals)
Hayley Blitz (vocals)
Mark Greenfield (percussion; daf, dabouka, cajon, vocals)
Daniel Jonas (guitar, oud, vocals)
Andrew Salida (guitar, flute, vocals)
Ariane Todes (violin)

Miradores is on sale from 13th October 2008, price £9.99, from amazon.co.uk

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