Tango originated in the low places of Argentina, but during the 1920s and'40s it became the rage around the world in café society—even as far away as Romania. After the rise of the Iron Curtain, Romania's ostensibly puritanical Communist regime banned the tango, yet the music and the dance survived in memory.
Growing up in the last years of Communism, Oana Catalina Chitu heard her father sing the old tango songs to himself on his way home from work. Later, she unearthed a trove of Romanian tango gramophone records in Bucharest antique shops—along with a wardrobe to match. Chitu, who had already established a musical career, became determined to recreate that old cabaret ambiance. On Bucharest Tango, she sings the repertoire of long-ago Romanian tango performers in a voice as rich as a tapestry with the elegant grace of a ballroom dancer. The klezmer-style clarinet, wild East melodies and tinkling cimbalom link the tango's moody, exotic drama to Romanian sources.
It's not unlikely that Chitu heard Gabi Lunca sing while she was growing up. Recordings from 1956-1978 by the popular Romanian singer have been reissued on Sounds from a Bygone Era Vol. 5. The lively tempos sometimes suggest the rural urgency of rockabilly but with the distinctly Balkan sounds of a lonesome high mountain clarinet, a candlelit accordionist and more of that tinkling cimbalom. Lunca was less influenced than Chitu by Western vocalists and with a little imagination, her octave straddling singing could fit nicely onto a Bollywood soundtrack.
