Saban Bajramovic – a legend leaves us

post by Bganon

Saban Bajramovic was perhaps the greatest living musical legend in the Balkans. Those that knew their music compared him to traditional great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He himself liked to be known as the Serbian Nat King Cole. Of this man and his life nothing is simple and frankly, his life very much confirms the (positive) stereotype that fills the western mind concerning the Roma.
He lived from day to day, his favourite car was the Mercedes, Saban liked to tell stories about his past, he liked to bet and so on. One of the better known stories was how he ended up on Goli Otok, the island more famous for housing political prisoners in SFRJ. He ran away from compulsory army service after falling in love with a girl and ended up being sentenced to a five year stint.
Conditions in the prison were much worse for ordinary prisoners than political ones and Saban suffered. However, it was there that he discovered his talent for music.

So, why is it that Bajramovic’s passing is not honoured in the way it should be? Why haven’t many musicians in the world heard of the great one? There are many reasons, but primarily it’s to do with the fact that Serbia did not value Bajramovic, perhaps because of the ethnic prism that people of the region have a tendency to look through. This is a man who should have been employed (and paid well) to promote Serbia in the cultural sphere. (I have no doubt that having this ambassador would do no harm to Serbia politically either). There are other reasons too, Kusturica / No smoking and Goran Bregovic have monopolised the genre and in some cases plaigarised his music, as other artists did. In a nutshell without strong support either from rich individuals or from the Serbian government, Bajramovic would never be celebrated as Bregovic / Kusturica are.

His musical career spanned 40 years and he made 20 albums. He also wrote the famous gypsy song Djelem Djelem, performed here with Josipa Lisac and Cubismo:

He is also credited with being a Blues or Jazz musician, by critics who know him. His music does stray into those genres upon occasion but the overriding sentiment is of the world gypsy genre.
If you listen carefully in some songs you can hear that some of the music has roots in more of a traditionally Hispanic sense – the use of a samba style beat or the Spanish guitar. Sometimes you can almost imagine that Saban has borrowed from the spaghetti western style. More likely that they borrowed from him! Bajramovic is famous for not paying much attention to any music other than his own.
As somewhere to start I recommend his album Saban Bajramovic – a gypsy legend. Regardless of whether you like the global, gypsy or ‘local’ genre you will not be disappointed. Listening to his music, for me at least, conjures up images of childhood when I first heard such passionate music. There isn’t a weak song on the album but Sajbija provokes the strongest emotions. This was the theme to the film Andjeo Cuvar starring Ljubisa Samardzic, Neda Arneric and Bajramovic. The film, by the way, is also well worth watching, despite its rather naive premise, as we follow Samardzic trying to rescue a gypsy boy who has run away to Italy to join a gang.

Towards the end Bajramovic was experiencing financial problems, mostly caused by the cost of paying for his ill health. By some accounts he felt abandoned and let down. A particular problem was that he was receiving no pension and (as usual) the government stepped in with too little and too late.

As far as concerts are concerned I have a few regrets, but one of the greatest is not going to watch Bajramovic sing. The reason? My rather pitiful lack of knowledge of Balkan music at the time.
The evening I heard the news, I sat in front of my computer, drank my remaining vintage rakija, toasted Saban and listened to his beautiful music, I’m not too proud to admit it, tears welled in my eyes. If any musician deserves our tears it is Bajramovic.
Rest in peace Saban.

Tagged as: legend, music, roma