Cafe Noir offers potluck of musical styles

Published: Thursday, January 29, 1998

Thursday, January 29, 1998

MUSIC: Band confirms mixing genres makes for tasty listening experience

By Alicia Roca

Daily Bruin Contributor

It is not often that a band applies the principles of cooking to music. In the kitchen, it is commonplace to mix varying ingredients to produce a sweet outcome or a chunky stew.

Texas' Cafe Noir, a band performing Saturday at the Veterans Wadsworth Theater, does just that and more.

"It's very emotional music ... it is creating a new sound out of the diverse elements that we are," says Gale Hess, violinist and co-founder of Cafe Noir, which provides its listeners with a diverse blend of gypsy beat, jazz swing, and classical flow. This diversity is Cafe Noir's most distinguishing factor, a factor found in both its music and musicians.

The Cafe Noir saga began in Europe approximately 12 years ago with co-founders Gale Hess and Norbert Gerl. Hess, a classically trained musician with backgrounds in country and jazz, was an experienced pianist, violinist and clarinetist. She left her native Texas to study classical music in Germany, where she met Gerl, a student trained in both the viola and guitar. They shared one common bond, a fascination with the gypsy musical style. They would later incorporate it into Cafe Noir.

"The gypsies were into lots of kinds of music and they played it their own way with their own improvisational styles and traditions. We apply that eclectic approach to everything that appeals to us musically. We drag it in and give it a try. If it works we run with it," Hess says.

Their big break came when a representative from the Royal Fest Hall in Germany heard them playing in the subway. They were promptly booked to play at the Fest Hall.

"Things have gone up since then. We don't do street playing anymore, we're a little old for that," Hess says.

The band would later expand to include Jason Bucklin, Lyles West, Vladimir Kaliazene and Dennis Durick. Bucklin, a native of Oklahoma, has a background in jazz and rock and has had a guitar in hand since childhood. West, a North Carolina native, specializes in jazz and bass. The two newest additions are Kaliazene and Durick. Kaliazene, a Russian native, gives Cafe Noir a polka flavor with his accordion. Drummer and percussionist Durizk has only been with the band three weeks. For Durick the biggest challenge is found in classical music.

"It's stimulating, a real departure from what I'm used to doing because the music's a lot more orchestral than a drummer would normally play," Durick says.

But normal is not a description at all characteristic of Cafe Noir; it defies categorization in every way.

In fact, the closest definition available for Cafe Noir's style is one brimming with hyphens: gypsy-rock-classical-polka-Afro-Cuban. This is at times problematic for the band.

"When a buyer wants to buy music, it's just like going to any other marketplace ... people want a three-word description of what you do, and anything more, they're not interested in," Hess says. Nonetheless, Cafe Noir has managed to maintain a wide array of listeners.

"It's very listenable music, it's not pop, but people who like pop can listen to it ... at the same time we've got dead heads and classical music buffs ... it appeals on an emotional level, that is what people like about it," Hess says.

Yet some may still wonder who this music targets.

"Anybody that likes music that takes you on a trip ... I guess that's college students, but 50-year-olds trip out too," Hess says.

MUSIC: Cafe Noir plays Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Veterans Wadsworth Theater. Tickets are available at the UCLA Central Ticket Office or by phone at (310) 825-2101.