Family
Mahala Rai Banda
Aurel Ioniță
Romanian Roma — Bucharest
Style: Lăutărească
Bucharest Romani band, public from 2004. Crammed, then Asphalt Tango. Neighbour to the Clejani circuit. Not a merger.
Asphalt Tango artist page: eleven-piece from Bucharest streets; violin and brass together. Debut on Crammed Discs, 2004–05. Ghetto Blasters on Asphalt Tango, 2009.
Aurel Ioniță is the named violin and composer on public cards. Some notices say a Clejani kinship with Taraf de Haïdouks. That kinship is not filed onto this family. The Clejani family stays Clejani.
Festival bills put them next to Fanfare Ciocărlia. The circuit is not the village job.
Lineage
Birth and death on a vertical line — generation by generation. Places are listed where we could find them.
Generation 1
Aurel Ioniță
Violin, voice
Named leader on the label cards. Kinship with Clejani is listed under Later.
Orchestra years
When the band was founded, when it split, when a new generation took the stand.
2004
New orchestra
Crammed debut
Mahala Rai Banda
Bucharest band. Self-titled album recorded 2004, Crammed Discs 2005. Not merged with Clejani.
2009
record
Ghetto Blasters
Mahala Rai Banda
Asphalt Tango. Henry Ernst and Marc Elsner.
Neighbours
Same country or city, but a different way of playing.
- Serban — Romanian Roma — Brăila → Scheveningen / Amsterdam / Delft
- Clejani lăutari — Romanian Roma — Clejani, Wallachia
- Zece Prăjini — Romanian Roma — Zece Prăjini, Moldavia
- Puceanu — Romanian Roma — Bucharest, urban lăutărească
- Luncă — Romanian Roma — Vărbilău, Prahova / Bucharest