This French sextet
plays an innovative modern synthesis of Gypsy and Yiddish music from Eastern Europe.
The name translates as 'Black Eyes', and is taken from a Russian Gypsy song the
French guitar legend Django Reinhardt made famous in the thirties.
The heart of the band is the twin
fiddles of brothers Eric and Olivier Slabiak. Both classically trained violinists,
they grew up in France immersed in the Jewish tradition, and founded the band
in 1992 to explore the common ground their own culture's music shares with that
of the Gypsies.
