3rd April 2018 – Interviews with Zoran and Ferus
I woke up excited and nervous, working very fast in the morning to prepare my questions and equipment for the interviews today and chasing my poor man Mihajlo around for getting all ready. We left, me being even more nervous, to meet Zoran Kraguevski, a Macedonian clarinettist, who is highly educated in various styles such as classical, jazz, Macedonian folklore and of course čoček. A great charismatic character and really nice man on top of it. We had a great conversation, partly interview, partly exchange between musicians.
He is very keen on čoček, but considers himself more an imitator, as the real čoček can only really be played by Romany people. The Turkish play the original, the Albanians, Greeks and originally the Bulgarian Roma had found their own variants, highly Ottoman influenced, but very skill full and charismatic. The Mcedonian variant he describes as soft and beautiful. Čoček for him is driven by the rhythm, as it is a music for dance. The other main element are the solos; based on makam, and tasteful melody lines, they show off the skill of a player and the quality of a performance. Zoran got very upset, telling us about the corruption of čoček in the new days. He had lived for 30 years in Sweden, and when he came back, all had changes. According to him, it sounded, and still sounds like bebop, too many notes and too little soul. Ivo Papasov and the Bulgarian wedding musicians have started corrupting it, and the new players follow his example and know nothing of makam and the od skills anymore… Very sadly he announced, that if the development will continue as it happens now, in 15 years there will be no more čoček left. Before parting, Zoran promised me a book with all the treasures of čoček notated. Also, we might have a jam, and he would demonstrate old and new čoček style.
After this very rich and lovely conversation, for me around 2 hours of full-on intense conversation to transcribe, we started the adventure to arrange the meeting with Ferus Mustafov, the King of Čoček in Macedonia, and the whole world. On the phone, he asked us what to wear, in case we take a video, and I actually regret, not taking him up on this, as his choice of outfit could well have added even more enrichment to our visit. Coincidentally, Bajsa was passing by, and lead the way to his residence.
The place which I thought would be his home, opened up to be a restaurant including a huge wedding dome – it seemed like that not he is travelling to the weddings he performs, but the weddings he plays are actually coming to him.
Ferus is a strong character, very confident, and absolutely certain he is and will always be the best. There are only a few famous čoček players around, and all others imitate them. The interview was certainly a highly interesting affair, but more so a quirky and extraordinary experience. Old videos from 1970 caused a lot of giggles; the jokes, and Bajsa making fun of him I unfortunately I only could fully capture later, when translated, as my Yugoslavia mish-mash language makes understanding still difficult.
A spicy moment was certainly when I asked about the most significant čoček players now and in the last 20-30 years, as next to him, there is only really his nephew, who learned from him, but is not mature enough to be great. About the declining quality of čoček he feels just as sad as Zoran, probably with the believe, that real čoček will die with him.
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