Yeux Noirs

Django Reinhardt version of "Dark Eyes," the song that influenced Nemours Jean-Baptiste's "Ti Carole."

Russian Influence On a Kompa Classic

While reading a review of the Haiti Direct music compilation, I couldn't help but notice the author's comment on how Richard Duroseau's accordion solo in "Ti Carole," a kompa hit written for a prominent makout, Antoine Khoury, is based on "Ochi Cherne," or "Dark Eyes," a 19th century Russian or Ukrainian poem set to music. Now, if the poem was set to a French composer's music, it would make more sense that the melody, which is widely known all over the world, would reach Haitian musicians (especially the Duroseau clan, known for being a musical family) and appear in this song. Either way, by the 1960s, the melody had already reached jazz artists, such as Louis Armstrong, whose own version of the song is quite beautiful.

According to an older Haitian musician and scholar of Haitian music, "Dark Eyes" has also surfaced in Cuban music and elsewhere in the Caribbean. Perhaps it reflects a "Gypsy" influence in European music that also influenced Spanish (and thus, Latin American) styles that shaped Caribbean genres. This link gives one the impression that the exact origins of the melody for "Dark Eyes" is unknown. Regardless, "Ti-Carole" is the result of centuries of creolization and cross-cultural exchange, from eastern Europe and France to the Caribbean. Enjoy this soul-stirring version of "Dark Eyes" here.