“And Sergei here’s another great violinista,” Mimo went on, gesturing to the other guy. “These guys come all way here now from Para to see Dolo and play with all us together. Big Roma gathering on the weekend… Gonna be ciganos from all the South America, even some come from far away in Europa… Like Dolo. He got some big gadjo music producer up there to pay all their passage. He wanna study our music…”
The two visiting gypsies nodded and grinned proudly like overgrown kids. Mimo, like the legendary Dolo and most of the other Roma I knew in Rio, was an excellent musician. He drove a taxi and bought and sold old cars for extra money since it was never easy for gypsies like Mimo to earn a living with music in Brazil. But the music was his soul. Traditional Roma music fused with popular Northern Brazilian Forro.
Our mutual brother, Dolo, the Baro or spiritual Godfather of this local Roma clan was also a gifted gypsy violinist, a remarkable singer and composer too who improvised impromptu Romani poetry and story as he sang and played at Roma gatherings all over the world. But like most of the others, Dolo often made his living doing other things. Mostly buying low and selling high and other things of a more shadowy nature. Like any good professional con man, he never shit where he lived, so he spent as much time traveling around Europe as he did here at home. There he was always working hard to promote Brazilian gypsy music and culture. We never spoke of his other ‘business ventures’ when speaking of Dolo. Ever since we were kids, we only spoke of Dolo at all with the highest respect as a renound traditional gypsy musician and our very dear old friend. Dolo was always the Baro, the humble unspoken leader of the local Roma and the one Rom we all knew who had done very well for himself financially. He had always done us proud and generously spread his good fortune around the community. Dolo was a true gypsy and an all around stand up guy, a charismatic and ballsy Romanian-born, life-loving eccentric. A big outspoken lusty gypsy soul, Dolo was something of a black sheep among other gypsies, inspiring much envy and suspicion among certain international Roma clans, but always a real life hero to us all in Rio.
to be continued…
Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.
How lovely… Gypsies…Never met a real Roma Gypsy, but have always wanted to.