This is a major study of the Greek musical style of paradosiakά. Anyone with an interest in Greek popular culture should already be aware that Greece has historically been a locus for the birth or appropriation of musical idioms through cultural exchange with the near East and beyond. Specific social and political circumstances, such as the military junta of 1967–1974, had resulted in the exclusion of ‘non-Greek’ elements from the dominant popular culture, while the role of the aforementioned reciprocal relationship was underplayed in order to stress cultural continuity through the articulation of national identity. This process of negotiating and re-interpreting Greek identity was also affected by Greece's entry to the EU in 1981, the proliferation of capitalism and, lately, transnational communications.

This quest for meaning and identity lies at the core of Kallimopoulou's analysis. Through a careful exploration of the paradosiakά musical movement she addresses these broader issues that are pertinent to the emergence of paradosiakά, as well as to the genre's development and change. A key element of the paradosiakά phenomenon was the rediscovery and importation of eastern instruments in the late 1970s, which constituted the paradosiakά musical apparatus. As Kallimopoulou demonstrates, the use of eastern instruments was consonant with the musicians' social background – urban, educated, middle-class youth – due to their cosmopolitan character and urban history. Thus, it was hardly surprising that the junta-associated dimotikό or ‘folk’ musical tradition, with its rural connotations, had not appealed to them as much as rempétiko, which offered a means of resistance to the Colonels' regime and also re-introduced Greek urbanites to Turkish musical idioms and instruments through its revival. Despite their eclectic synthesis of various distinct but interrelated domestic traditions, paradosiakά musicians found an outlet for their creative endeavours and ideological explorations mainly in the musical traditions of neighbouring Turkey. Consequently, their opposition to the post-dictatorship, imported, Anglo-American mainstream culture consisted of seeking music alternatives towards a more open redefinition of tradition, as well as challenging the western ‘Other’, a process also fuelled by ensuing debates after Greece's entry into the European Union.

By drawing in a balanced manner upon both her ethnomusicological research and extensive personal experience as a paradosiakά musician, Kallimopoulou offers a fascinating account of the politics and aesthetics of this musical genre, as well as its social history. The material is organised in four, neatly divided parts, arranged chronologically around four decades – 1970s–2000s, that trace the emergence of the paradosiakά phenomenon and its gradual development into an important musical form.

Part I outlines the historical circumstances during the 1970s and the ideological formations that gave rise to paradosiakά. Kallimopoulou states that: ‘In the post-dictatorship period, with the question of entry to the European Economic Community, the theme of Greekness was recast around the question of where Greekness ought to be located in the West–East continuum’ (p. 17). This discussion about the nature of Greekness and the question of whether contemporary Greek cultural identity stemmed from Έllines or Romioί – idealised descendants of classical Greeks or Byzantine and Turkish Christians respectively (p. 15) – was central to the reconsideration of tradition, and it was reflected in concurrent developments in urban popular music. The symbolic enlistment of dimotikό by the junta, and its rural, ‘authentic’ indigenous character, had alienated it from a large part of the urban population, and it was through Έntehno composers such as Xyloýris and Savvópoylos, who incorporated tradition in musical forms intelligible to the young urban generation, that the status of dimotikό started to change. However, Kallimopoulou demonstrates that it was the rempétiko revival and the earlier Hellenisation of the Ottoman café idiom (p. 26), which reconciled urban Greeks with their Asia Minor musical heritage and resulted in a fuller reconsideration of Greek popular culture and tradition by stressing the role of its living exponents as the carriers of this tradition (pp. 29–33).

In Part I the author also examines the work of musicologist Sίmon Karás as well as the introduction and appropriation of eastern instruments within the realm of Greek traditional music, which according to Karás consisted of Orthodox ecclesiastical chant and Greek folk music. The pivotal role of Karás in the emergence of paradosiakά and its subsequent institutionalisation through the foundation of Music Schools for secondary education, which gave rise to a new generation of paradosiakά musicians in the 1990s (Part III), is evident throughout the monograph. If eastern instruments came to be perceived as the sine qua non of the paradosiakά style, Karas's contribution lay in, but was not limited to, his theory of cultural continuity between classical Greece, Byzantium and the modern Greek state. His highly ideological doctrine, in accordance with the ‘neo-Orthodox’ movement, treated Ottoman music as the ‘missing link’, and essentially as a re-interpretation of Byzantine music. Thus, as Kallimopoulou explains, by ‘realising the advantages offered by a formulation that incorporates Ottoman culture instead of excluding it, Karás constructed a homological model’ (p. 39), which would pave the way for the employment of eastern instruments within paradosiakά.

The 1980s saw the emergence of paradosiakά proper with prominent figures carving out the genre's cultural and musical space, in their search for musical autonomy (Part II). Ross Daly, and the groups Dynámeis tou Aigaíou and Bosphorus, are widely considered as paradosiakά pioneers and through their musical practice and teaching became the source of inspiration for many individuals who later took up the eastern instruments – the author included. Despite the early actors' musical and cultural diversity, they played a major role in the wider recognition of paradosiakά as a constitutive part of the Greek musical landscape: Daly's musical cosmopolitanism and his image of the East as an open and inclusive cultural terrain, combined with the contributions of Dynámeis and Bosphorus, who promoted traditional Greek music and Turkish art music respectively in urban contexts, had a continuing effect and are echoed in the practices of younger paradosiakά musicians. In the final part of the book (Part IV) the author explores the relation of paradosiakά with the Greek music market after the turn of the millennium, as well as relevant transnational connections and communications and their repercussions on the genre's current status. Through a portrait of Sofía Lampropoúlou, a musician stemming from the new generation of paradosiakά actors, Kallimopoulou illuminates the conventions and constraints of professionalism that both established and aspiring musicians face within the fluid, fragmented arena of the music industry. The lack of rigid aesthetic and musical boundaries in paradosiakά, as well as the limited opportunities offered by the domestic music industry, have made it necessary for the musicians within the genre to exhibit a ‘multiplex subjectivity’ (Rosaldo 1989), a high level of adaptability to the dictates of diverse cultural markets (p. 190). Similarly, the hybrid and diffuse elements of paradosiakά are further reinforced by international connections: Daly's Labyrinth Musical Workshop in Houdétsi, Crete, stands out as a situated example of intercultural communication within paradosiakά and, as such, it reflects the style's inclusive nature as well as its future potential for creative musical exploration and assimilation.

The case of Houdétsi also offers the opportunity for an ethnographic study of the global within the local (p. 201). In various instances Kallimopoulou opts for ethnographic description and interpretation, with remarkable results. Thus, given the author's extensive, first-hand experience as a music practitioner within the paradosiakά milieu, additional ethnographic examples could have been employed. However, Paradosiakά is an accessible and ambitious work spanning four decades, and the wealth of the presented material, including transcriptions, photographs and two CDs, enriches Kallimopoulou's well framed arguments. This book will appeal to ethnomusicologists and to academics with an interest in popular culture of the Mediterranean.