From
Constantinople to the USA, Roza Eskenazi was the prototypical
Rebetissis for almost every Hellenic female vocalist that followed
and that included just about everyone. Take a good close look at
what obviously are just a few of the great PR photos she had taken
during her very long and extended career. How could anyone
not love a women like this? Able to project and promote
herself like a turn of the century " Madonna", she was
arguably the most famous early Greek female recording artist ever to
grace the stage. Relatively little is known concerning her
formative years but who do know she was born to Jewish parents in
Constantinople about 1883 and later moved with her family to
Thesalonica. From there she ended up in Athens where she was
discovered by the redoubtable PanayotisToundas, who was also a
record producer as well as a prolific composer. He placed her
in a recording studio around 1930 and the rest is history. There is some contention however concerning the precise
chronology of her early career. Much of this is based on the
questionable accuracy of the reported year of her birth . It
is usually given as somewhere around 1883 but no one really seems to
know for certain and Eskenazy herself claimed it was as late as 1915,
a year which has long been discredited since we know the PR
photo above and on the right was taken around that time.
There is a Biography about Rosa Eskenazy written in Greek titled
"Afto pou themame" (What I remember), but it report
ably raises more questions then it answers . After a very long
and even more distinguished career, that included having worked
with everyone from the first generation Rebetis such as Toundas and
Semsis, to having performed duets with the contemporary female
" Voice of Greece" Haris Alexiou for a TV
special in the early 70's, Roza Eskenazi died at home in December
of 1980 and was interred in the city of Stomio Greece, in an
unmarked grave! A
circumstance we regard as unconscionable and a reality that if
substantiated, should be a profound embarrassment for the entire
Greek entertainment industry she had loved and was so instrumental
in helping to create. One can't help but speculate as to how
many other of these early Smyrniac artists, have had to suffer a
similar indignity . An indignity that needs to be rectified as
soon as possible !
