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Taki at the age of 22 |
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Takis Mathaiou, the One Man Greek Band (OMB), has rellocated to Utah in the past few years where
he parted his band that he founded and led for 17 years in Cleveland, OH - Stigma. Even though Taki has been performing
the OMB concept for 25 years, or so, he sometimes create an ad-hoc band, where he adds musicians per customer - It all depends on the event and the wishes of the
customer - Though he sounds like a full band with his versatile playing and singing on his own. For example,
the event may only need a live bouzouki player, or singer, or an entire band. Due to his experience and accumulated number of talented Greek musicians he has played with throughout his career,
he is able to create a power house band special for your event. Unlike many other bands, the musician that Taki hires are all seasoned professional musicians,
thus the final musical product at your event can be compared to the Greek bands you hear in Greece. Of xourse, this would include a full sound system and lighting effects.
Now a little background of Takis and how he was molded thoughout his musical profesional career.
Taki Matheou began playing music at the age of 6 years
old when his mother and father decided that the instrument of choice
was the accordion. For 7 years straight every week, Taki went to
accordion lessons with the nationally renown accordion player Sefani.
Throughout the seven year period, Taki played at many recitals
including musical talent contests where he acquired many awards. At
the age of 13, Taki decided to switch to a more formidable and
mainstream related instrument - the keyboard. At that time, he took
approximately a year's worth of piano lessons to get acclimated with
the appropriate fingering positions concerning the horizontal playing
of the piano. At the age of 14, Taki began playing with a Greek band
that was located in the Cleveland, Ohio area.
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Taki at the age of 22 |
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At the age of 22, he left the band to expand his musical horizons. He played at numerous piano bars around the Cleveland area playing contemporary American music, and continued to play Greek music as a free-lance musician with many Greek bands within the Midwest area. In doing so, Taki became recognized by many talented musicians that are still currently within the US professional bouzoukia scene. Taki played with these musicians around the US where he enhanced his style of playing and truly grasped the concepts of Greek music.
For those who have played with Taki, they recognize his ability to
play with or without a bass player - as the wave files above
demonstrate (no overdubs). His left hand mimics a bass player while
he plays flawless difficult right handed leads. Likewise, when
performing with a bass player, Taki is able to continue to use his
left hand to comp via chords and/or playing different combined leads
with both left and right hands. With the limited amount of talented
Greek musicians in the US, this attribute allows Taki to enhance any
band he plays with, as he has done to date - over 20 years playing
professionally.
Throughout his Greek musical playing career Taki has played with many
musicians and singers that are renown within the United States and in
Greece:
Singers:
Sakelariou, Perpiniadis, Zagoraios, Politis, Opados, Vlahaki, Dimitriou,
Konitopoulos, Karahaliou, Varsos and Dakis, and many more...
Musicians:
Rotas - Bouzouki, Antonopoulos - Bouzouki, Soffos - Bouzouki, Zervas
- Keyboards, Xidas - Keyboards, Sevastakis - Clarinet, Mpournias -
Clarinet, Saleas - Klarino, Xatzopoulos - Violin, and many more..