The Kostis enigma - Constantine Bezos, a Greek chameleon

Rebetiko, plural rebetika (Greek: ρεμπέτικο, ρεμπέτικα respectively), is a term used today to
refer to originally disparate kinds of urban Greek folk music which have come to be grouped
together since the so-called rebetika revival, which started in the 1960s and developed further
from the early 1970s onwards. The word rebetiko (plural rebetika) is an adjectival form
derived from the Greek word rebetis (Greek: ρεμπέτης), a word nowadays construed to
signify a person who embodies aspects of character, dress, behaviour, morals and ethics
associated with a particular Greek subculture. The word is closely related, but not identical in
meaning, to the words mangas (Greek: μάγκας), mortis (Greek: μόρτης) and others. The
etymology of the word rebetis remains the subject of dispute and uncertainty. Rebetika, an
often raw and uncompromising music, was simply not allowed into Greek recording studios
in its genuine forms until about 1931.

The newly-started independent label Olvido Records, brainchild of musician Gordon

Ashworth, is proud to offer as its first release, in association with Mississippi Records, the LP
"The Jail's a Fine School", presenting for the first time complete and in pristine audio what is
perhaps one of the most enduringly interesting and certainly one of the most unique sets of
Greek recordings made during this period. Recorded in 1930 and 1931 by the maverick multi-
media genius Constantinos (Kostas) Bezos (1905-1943) under the pseudonyms A. Kostis and
K. Kostis, these ten songs and two instrumentals magically transcend the distinction between
the original tough rebetika and a kind of parody which flourished simultaneously in Athenian
stage revues and recordings. The lyrics, and the singing, are in a style immediately associated
to the tough milieu of Piraeus, with its hash dens, pickpockets, jailbirds, and knife artists.

For several decades no one had any idea who the musicians and singer, or singers, were on
these records, but the songs themselves soon became part of the staple repertoire of rebetika
revivalists. It was the indefatigable persistence of the Dutch discographer Hugo Strötbaum
which finally gave the first clues during the 1980s. Gaining access to recording company files
in America, he noted that one name tended to recur in the credits to these sessions, namely K.
Bezos. Although Bezos was never actually credited as performer in his own name on the
“Kostis” sides, company files unearthed during discographical research revealed that matrix
number sequences for May 1931 position K. Bezos and his Hawaiian Sextet in the studios in
close temporal proximity to when the six 1931 Kostis songs were recorded.

The bizarre fact is that beyond the twelve Kostis sides, Bezos’ musical career was dedicated
to a totally different field of Greek popular music, Havagies (Hawaiian style) which in the
“normal” course of events would never intersect. From about the same time as the first Kostis
recordings were waxed in 1930, until what appear to be his last recordings in 1938,
Constantinos Bezos recorded mainly Hawaiian style versions of popular and satirical songs,
both of his own composition and from various other sources, often works of highly regarded
operetta composers, as it were the Tin Pan Alley stars of Greece. It is now no longer a matter
of doubt that the voice heard on the “Kostis” records is in fact identical with the voice heard
on a number of the approximately 40 recordings of Bezos’ Greek-Hawaiian ensemble Ta
Aspra Poulia (The White Birds), the ensemble depicted in the accompanying photo, which
shows the group to have had eight members at the time. There are a number of guitars to be
seen, and, remarkably, that faux Dobro ukulele. (see photo D.D.)

Istanbul-born New York-based Victor A&R man Tetos Demetriades was demonstrably in the
studio during the recordings, was clearly closely involved, and in fact made a handful of vocal
recordings himself, employing Bezos as his steel guitarist. In hindsight it is highly probable
that Demetriades himself initiated the Kostis sessions, with the intention of releasing the
records on Victor in the USA. Bezos’ guitar playing on the Kostis sides, with its singing tone,
is clearly influenced by his Hawaiian tonal ideals, even though not played with slide
technique, and it is unique to the hitherto recorded Greek repertoire.

Bezos was only 25 years old and clearly using his acting gifts to put on variously modulated
voices evoking those of tough, older men, singing of the low life, using the guitar duet as his
basic accompaniment. His acting ability has in fact caused many initiated aficionados over the
years to suspect that more than one singer was involved. The solo guitar parts were probably
not played with a plectrum, but with a gentler technique using fingernails, which give an
attack quite different from the snappy sound characteristic of bouzouki players. Two of the
songs use the pointedly oriental mode known as “Sabah”. In fact one of the songs, Isouna
Xipoliti (You Were Barefoot) uses a corrupt form of the mode, clearly generated by the use of
the open G tuning of the guitar and a comfortable fingering scheme, while the other song, Stin
Ipoga, (In The Basement) follows the conventions of the mode. Seven of the twelve sides are
clearly in zeibekiko metre, while the instrumentals are in quadruple metres. Of the remaining
three, two are in a dotted quadruple metre. One of these, Touto To Kalokairaki (This Summer)
feels musically like a zeibekiko bereft of its ninth beat, whereas Kaike Ena Scholeio (A
School Burned Down) feels more like a “heavy tsifteteli”, though not for dancing. Toumbeleki
toumbeleki stands alone in its musical structure. Here we are treated to a musically fascinating
pastiche of Carter Family style, albeit in a totally unique combination of 2/4 and 9/8 meters,
where the solo guitar plays part of the melody on the bass strings of the guitar in classic
Maybelle Carter style.

During his career, Bezos toured Egypt and Turkey in 1934 with Kleon Triandafyllou aka
Attík, the famed composer of what may well be called Athenian chansons. An archive
recently accessed by Dimitris Kourtis thanks to descendants of Bezos’ sister, comprising
photos of Bezos and including two of his passports is ample evidence of these visits.
However, as yet no solid evidence of a transatlantic visit has come to light, despite assertions
to that effect.

There are a couple of aspects of Bezos’ music-making, however, which suggest that even if he
never spent time in the United States, he was exposed to various kinds of American music. I
am referring to two observations.

The first point is the presence of a faux Dobro ukulele in the photograph.
See photo D.D. Dobro

Dobro instruments were still a novelty at this time; having been first marketed in the United
States in 1928, and imitations were soon being manufactured in some European countries.

A further sign of Bezos’ American influences is to be found in the Kostis song ("The Jail's a
Fine School", Olvido Records) “Toumbeleki toumbeleki” from the 1931 sessions. The song in
question is clearly, at least to my mind, inspired by Maybelle Carter’s way of playing bass
lines.

Bezos’ use of so-called “open tunings” on the guitar is to be attributed to his familiarity with
Hawaiian music. For the uninitiated, this refers to tuning all the strings of a guitar to a chord,
which among other things facilitates the use of the slide technique characteristic of Hawaiian
music, and, subsequently, of the various slide techniques, using bottle or bar, of many blues,
bluegrass and country musicians. Recent information from Stavros Kourousis tells that during
the 1920s and 1930s there was a restaurant in the Zappeion area of Athens where Greek
musicians who played Hawaiian guitar gathered to listen to records of among others the
magnificent Kalama Quartet. Interestingly, the Kalama Quartet used two steel guitars, a
feature not otherwise typical of Hawaiian recordings for that period, but a very usual feature
of Greek-Hawaiian recordings.

Bezos’ musical work thus spanned a broad range of style and feeling. The dark rebetiko
toughness of the Kostis songs and the zany originality of the two Kostis instrumentals,
contrast sharply with the far more numerous Hawaiian pieces which evince in their turn such
contrasting characteristics as romantic melancholy, ironic pseudo-misogynist humour,
amazing surrealist humour, and political satire.

Constantine Bezos, a truly unique figure in the Greek culture of the interwar period, whose
life was brutally cut short by tuberculosis and by the German occupation of Greece during
WWII, was a man of many careers, and this is an all too brief portrait of an all too brief, yet
rich existence. Not only singer, guitarist (both "straight" and Hawaiian steel), songwriter,
band-leader, he also pursued a successful career in journalism, and as a political cartoonist. In
the last couple of years of his life he acted in two films; his death during the filming process
led to his scenes being cut from one of them; a copy of the other film, Magia I Tsingana
(Maya the Gypsy) has still to be rediscovered.

Tony Klein
Uppsala, Sweden, June 30th 2015