Living Like Gypsies

Those films incorporated Gypsy music soundtracks, which helped spark interest in the genre. The band Taraf de Haidouks, which uses fiddles and accordions, released its first album in 1991 and has since won an international reputation; Depp is rumored to be so enamored he flies them to parties and receptions around the globe. Berlin-based Bosnian DJ Robert Soko helped introduce "Balkan Beat" music to the European club scene. Earlier this month the New York-based Gypsy-punk band Gogol Bordello released its new album "Super Taranta"; recently members of the band joined Madonna onstage at Live Earth and got the pop superstar to sing partly in Romany. "I always wanted to get Gypsy music out of the ghetto of the world-music section," says lead singer Eugene Hutz. "There are whole communities of skate-punk kids in places like California who have started listening to groups like Fanfare Ciocarlia and Taraf de Haidouks."

Bregovic is taking the Gypsy-music revolution a step further, combining traditional Balkan brass rhythms with Slavic folk, jazz improvisation and a smattering of retro Euro-pop. "Brega," as he is known to his fans, started playing at 16 in Sarajevo's strip joints, to the fury of his father, who was a colonel in the Army. "He'd shout, 'You are not going to do that Gypsy job!' " Bregovic says. "It just goes to show there's always been a link between being a Gypsy and making music."

Bregovic and his band recently embarked on a Europe-wide tour that will culminate at Guca—perhaps the most important event on the Gypsy-music calendar. No wonder two separate films have been made about it. In Milic's "Distant Trumpet," a Romani brass player bets his lover Juliana's trumpet-playing Serbian father that if he wins the prestigious "Golden Trumpet" award at Guca, the star-crossed couple can be together. And the documentary "Guca" looks at the festival's founders and fans who travel great distances to drink and dance to the brass music. "When you haven't got a car, when you haven't got money, when you can't live normally, those five minutes of trumpet mean a lot," says one reveler. And as the growing legions of fans attest, they mean a lot even if you've got a car and money.

© 2007