Cafe Aman Istanbul was founded in 2009 by Stelios Berberis and Pelin Suer who are musicians from the Turkish Music Conservatory. They were later joined by bouzouki player Dimitris Lappas from Thessaloniki. The ensemble released its first album named Fasl-i Rembetiko in 2012. What makes them so special is that they draw their inspiration from rembetiko repertoires of Anatolia and Greece.
The ensemble marks a rebirth of rembetiko in Istanbul, reviving the spirit of the Cafe Aman taverns of the late Ottoman era where Greek and Turkish culture and musical traditions lived side by side. The Cafe Aman taverns were a part of the rich fabric of Ottoman cultural life where there was no distinction between performer and audience, where singers improvised in free rhythm and melody and where men and women could sing and dance together. The word Aman is derived from Arabic amān meaning ‘safety; shelter, protection’, and is used to express ‘deep longing’ which can be sensed in the rembetiko musical tradition.
This musical tradition was transported to Greece after the declaration of the Turkish Republic which led most Greeks to leave Turkey for their native country. But, it is interesting to note that the Greek government banned rembetiko in 1936 thinking that it belonged to an Anatolian tradition. Metaxas dictatorship of the era censored all lyrics. The music was once again liberated in following decades.
Cafe Aman ensemble wants to revive this old İstanbul musical tradition! Let’s lend an ear to a traditional love song written for a woman named Gülbahar, a song that was loved both by Greeks as well as Turks in old İstanbul performed by the Ensemble.
